How far away is "normal"?

submitted by HelloMomo from self.Lesbians

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[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (14 children)

"Normal" is relative in terms of long-distance relationships. I don't think anyone can really answer what a "normal" distance in an LDR is.

The more answerable question is whether or not living 2 hours away (what's the physical measurement of distance if you don't mind my asking?) is "workable." But that also can't be answered here... by anyone but you and her. I've never been in an LDR but "workability" seems to be based on things like whether you have the means and money to make that roundtrip, how often that trip is going to be taken, who's going to be doing the traveling, individual schedules (just because you're visiting her in her home doesn't mean she doesn't have other tasks/chores/hobbies to do), if either of you live with roommates/family, your physical health/ability to make the trip, and your willingness to be in an LDR knowing that it ultimately isn't going to be the same as dating someone who lives in the same city as you if that's something that you're used to and are looking for. Many people say they're willing to go the distance (metaphorically and literally) until it comes time to actually do so.

Also, over the years, I've heard a multitude of reasons why lesbians seem to LDR more than anyone else including population size with lesbians making up 3-4% of the population, many (most?) lesbians don't live near major cities so we have to branch out further to find more women like us, those of us who live near each other probably already dated each other and maybe we don't want to date our friends or ex's ex or friend's ex or whatever. Also, it does seem the whole "settling down" thing happens younger/quicker amongst many lesbians, so if you're older and want to date someone your age, only looking in a 10 mile radius for a single available lesbian who's your type is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Straight people can go ahead and only look in their own city and they'll still have so many people they can date. If lesbians did that, we'd have like 1.5 options at most.

[–]votkriscan 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (13 children)

The population is closer towards 10%, which still makes it a very small population (1/10). The key is that lesbians are a segregated bunch. There is this assumption that lesbians must be equally distributed in every region, city and country. This is not the case. There are some areas where there are a large amount of lesbians, and at others, they do not particularly exist, or the dating demographic you are interested in does not. For anyone who have the misfortune to live in no-lesbian land, then they will have to branch out much harder or make the decision to re-locate.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (12 children)

Ten percent is what Albert Kinsey estimated the general gay male population to be over half a century ago. The population rate of LGBT people is 3-5%. As shown in this study, this other study, and this Gallup poll. Save your corrections for when you're actually correct. And the rest of your response is just regurgitating mine so... great job repeating me, I guess.

[–]reluctant_commenter 7 insightful - 3 fun7 insightful - 2 fun8 insightful - 3 fun -  (9 children)

Dude, you didn't even read the Gallup poll you linked, lol. It says 8% of millenials identify as LGBT. Of course older generations are dragging down the average, because many never ended up coming out of the closet.

Also, Stonewall or one of the other LGBTQ+ organizations found a prevalence of 8% of cisgender LGB among millenials, let me go find that pdf. Sure it's not quite 10%, but 3-4% is an underestimation (it's averaging across all age groups).

edit: GLAAD, sorry, not Stonewall, my bad. Here's a post about it on s/lgbdropthet: https://saidit.net/s/LGBDropTheT/comments/625t/i_made_charts_from_2017_glaad_survey_data_showing/

However, to your point-- many LB women drink the TQ koolaid so we have a much smaller dating pool, anyway.

From the GLAAD survey:

  • 20% of millenials identify LGBTQ.

  • 8% of those are cisgender LGBA, 4% trans "heterosexual", 8% trans "nonheterosexual". So less than 8% when you exclude asexuals... but more than 8% when you include the LGB people who transitioned.

  • 11% of millenials are LGB (including pansexual, excluding asexual). But of course, some % of these are trans and probably includes some AGPers and the like. So I think you're right about less than 10%, but it's much closer to 10% than the Gallup poll average would suggest.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I actually did, dude. I guess you didn't or you would've seen this:

the increase has been driven almost totally by millennials, whose self-reports of being LGBT have risen from 5.2% six years ago to 8.1% today.

Or this:

Self-reported LGBT identification among older Americans is much more stable.

You took one number from one population and said I was wrong. That's a false comparison. Altogether, the rate of LGBT people in the Gallup poll is still 4.5% for all of the surveyed ages. And that's just Americans.

You don't find it odd that the exact generation that started all this SLURio/you can be MENTALLY ILLwithout dysphoria/you can unlearn your preferences/LGBT is a sacred identity shit in the first place is the one with the highest LGBT population and the highest increase rate? What about all the fetishistic straight people who have started saying they're MENTALLY ILLin the past decade? Or that anyone can say they're ""I'm a fucking moron"" and that's apparently considered trans?

You can't ignore that saying one is LGBT is a trend or aesthetic for a lot of people who actually aren't, particularly millennials. And once they're done screaming at us for not liking dick they'll settle down with their opposite-sex partners, go back to church, have their babies, and probably laugh to their children about that one time they were literally part of a hate group but only because those silly gayz lead them astray.

Why are you trying to derail this thread over this?

EDIT: formatting +

You can stop derailing the thread by not responding anymore, cherry-picking one line out of 1 of 3 research studies, or making up bullshit like saying I insulted the rando who incorrectly "corrected" me. "Correcting" someone with wrong information is not at all helpful to anyone. Did I use any swear words or aggression? No. I noticed your smugness really took a nosedive in your second reply. Y'all just can't take being wrong (or providing any evidence of your personal beliefs you think are facts)... which really should sound familiar to this crowd. Probably the reason this sub is so dead.

Your GLAAD survey doesn't prove you right; all you talk about is American millennials from one survey. I posted three. And even if the LGBT population rate was actually at 10%--which it isn't--that does not mean the population rate of lesbians is 10%. Do the math, y'all. Also this is directly from your link:

12% of Millennials identify as transgender or gender nonconforming

Yeah, real reliable statistics. /s

[–]reluctant_commenter 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Why are you trying to derail this thread over this?

You insulted someone else for trying to be helpful when you brought up a statistic, so I thought I would share another resource with statistics and clarify a detail about the Gallup poll that you shared. But you're right, this thread is distracting from HelloMomo's post so I'll leave it at this comment.

You can't ignore that saying one is LGBT is a trend or aesthetic for a lot of people who actually aren't, particularly millennials.

Yes, there definitely is a trend encouraging people to say they are LGB as well as T, and that will cause an increase in reporting. However, what also causes an increase in reporting is people feeling safe to come out since laws changed, which in the U.S., happened around six years ago.

And at this point in time, it's harder to say which of these two phenomena is responsible for how much of that increase. I wanted to point this out because I think there's more truth in votkriscan's response than we might expect, even with the transgender trend going on. Have a nice day.

[–]yousaythosethings 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I agree that I don’t trust GLAAD’s statistics and that even from my standpoint as an LBL, I don’t believe the elevated numbers are mostly explained by more people feeling safe to come out. But I really think you’re being overly harsh here and have the wrong impression of u/reluctant_commenter. She has provided a lot of insightful statistical analysis here and I hope she will continue to do so. She is absolutely not someone who is smug or who can’t take being wrong, but someone who is interested in accuracy and measured, reasoned analysis, not hot takes.

I think there also may be some generational divide at play since she’s Gen Z and around a lot of wokies. From my millennial standpoint where people are still more likely to base their sexual orientation and sense of self on their sex and a lot of tomboys still exist, it feels pretty clear to me that we are a tiny minority.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 3 fun2 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 3 fun -  (1 child)

She has provided a lot of insightful statistical analysis here

No, she hasn't. She's cherry picked one statistic from one generation of one country from a study--that doesn't even prove the point she was trying to make--in which less than 4,000 people participated. (The first study I provided had around 67,000 subjects.) Not to mention her baseless accusations of apparently "insulting" someone who tried to correct me with incorrect information as her justification for thread-derailing (btw what's yours?).

She is absolutely not someone who is smug or who can’t take being wrong, but someone who is interested in accuracy and measured, reasoned analysis, not hot takes.

Again, completely unproven considering her responses and the 100% smug little "Dude, you didn't even read the Gallup poll you linked, lol" as her very first response. I suggest you read over her replies again because even when she can't prove her point with the study *she** supplied*, she still doubles down on her 10% lie.

I think there also may be some generational divide at play since she’s Gen Z and around a lot of wokies.

And...? I'm supposed to censor myself and commit to her fictions because she's younger and spends her time with people who easily believe the same libfem lies she does? How about no. Or I can start believing feminists are out here killing 50,000 TiMs per year too.

I maintain that it was rude as shit of her (and you and that other one) to try to correct me and censor my responses (isn't that why we hate reddit in the first place?) when she was indisputably wrong and has to mislead people with stats only referring to American millennials (conveniently forgetting that people of other ages in other countries also exist). I am fully done with this nonsense that's not even about this thread since more than half the replies are now probably off-topic. But in the interest of never responding to this shit again, let's do a thought experiment (for the people who believe the 10% fiction but have a problem with my original 3-4% lesbian estimate) and say LGBT people make up exactly 10% of the whole entire population across the earth at all times: go with the .1% estimate for the T, ignore all the research for LGB (even though most Ts are homosexual even now), and split the 9.9% evenly between all groups. That's 3.3% gay men, 3.3% lesbians, and 3.3% bisexuals which falls in line with my original point of

lesbians making up 3-4% of the population

which started this domino of whiners. (If you read the research, it's actually less in reality.) You can have your own issues and opinions, I don't care. But don't correct mine or try to censor me with incorrect information and say it's because I'm a bIg mEAniE.

[–]yousaythosethings 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Oh Jesus. I was referring to the full body of her contributions to this sub and to s/LGBDroptheT. I’m not interested in policing meanies. I am interested in people not unduly assuming her intentions, character, and perspective based on a limited interaction such that it would discourage her from contributing further content because quite frankly this place can already be a drag sometimes.

[–]reluctant_commenter 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I think there also may be some generational divide at play since she’s Gen Z and around a lot of wokies.

Lol, read that as "wookies" at first. But yes, I think you're correct. I forget all the time that I'm a lot younger than most posters on s/lesbians and that definitely plays into my sense of how many people I've seen identifying as cisgender LGB (ignoring trans for a moment). I mentioned it in my other comment but I knew a remarkable number of classmates in college, far higher 20%, who self-described as being LGB and not trans. Perhaps it's overly optimistic of me, and giving far too much benefit of the doubt, but I struggle to believe that like 90%+ of those people were just straight-up lying or wrong-- not because the idea unrealistic but because it disturbs me to think about. I'll own that bias.

Also, thank you for the words of support, I really appreciate it dude <3 I try my best to write non-confrontationally but sometimes tone is easily confused, and while I don't believe I am superior to anyone in any way, I was frustrated at how quickly the other commenter (votkriscan) was belittled. Gallup polls do have flaws and limitations, like any other surveys, even though they're often the best (or only) guesses of prevalence that we have; and I am still inclined to believe there may be an underestimation of homosexuality/bisexuality among the older generation which would artificially bring the group average down (to that 3-4% figure). But to be honest, we might just have to wait til we have more and better data than what is currently available. Gender identity ideology is making it harder to accurately assess the prevalence of our community... we might just have to wait until the dust settles in, like, a decade or so.

edit: typos

[–]yousaythosethings 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I’m going to have to look further into this but 3-4% sounds way more accurate from my vantage point and experience. Anything even close to 10% seems way too high and I am not inclined to trust GLAAD as a source. Words have been bastardized beyond comprehension for maximum political gain these days and there are also a lot of LARPers/trenders. For example, pansexual often means woke straight (only ever been attracted to the opposite sex both open to the idea of the same sex). GLAAD in particular defines sexual orientations based on gender attraction. So you get people into the opposite sex but covering “all genders” and pronouns claiming LGB membership.

20% of millennials identifying as LGBTQ sounds especially like horseshit and I’m a millennial who has spent a lot of time living in concentrated woke epicenters so I already don’t feel like I can trust that data.

Propaganda orgs like these have every incentive to manipulate their data and claim the maximum numbers possible.

[–]reluctant_commenter 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

GLAAD in particular defines sexual orientations based on gender attraction.

Actually, believe it or not, it looks like they do define attraction as based on sex not gender-- but only for being gay/lesbian. (But their definition seems questionable-- it implies that one can change sex and doesn't mention gametes at all.) For bisexual they do define it based on gender. I'm going to guess they changed it for "bisexual" because of the dictionary overwriting of the term that occurred a few months ago or so. Their definitions page: https://www.glaad.org/reference/lgbtq

20% of millennials identifying as LGBTQ sounds especially like horseshit and I’m a millennial who has spent a lot of time living in concentrated woke epicenters

(Might remove this part later because I'm a fucking nerd and this is niche enough that I could theoretically get doxxed for it, lol.) When I was in college, I did an unofficial survey of sexual orientation of students living in my dorm and the % of these students I knew who were LGBTQ-identifed was at like 35-40% (and I could've missed a few people who were quieter about it). Not joking. A college with very affluent, and very liberal, students. I share this to highlight two points:

  • I'm unfazed by a ballpark of 20% because I'm biased, I see this shit everywhere-- and that is a bias I have. As you pointed out in your other comment, I'm at the tip-top of Gen Z so I know a lot of people like this. Like a lot. (The belief "everyone is bisexual" is very common among the people my age who I have met.)

  • I haven't looked at where GLAAD got their survey data from and I wouldn't be surprised if white, affluent students are way overrepresented in their survey data. Like my college classmates. Who is most likely to be exposed to a GLAAD survey and take it, anyway? (edit: This speaks to your point about GLAAD being a propaganda org)

Propaganda orgs like these have every incentive to manipulate their data and claim the maximum numbers possible

I think you are right, and I think I may have underestimated this because I started reading through GLAAD's website earlier today and there are a lot of inconsistencies and questionable claims. If I have the time this week, I might make a post about it on droptheT.

Thanks for sharing your perspective, I appreciate it.

[–]yousaythosethings 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

No problem dude. <3 I’ve got your back!

I'm unfazed by a ballpark of 20% because I'm biased, I see this shit everywhere-- and that is a bias I have. As you pointed out in your other comment, I'm at the tip-top of Gen Z so I know a lot of people like this. Like a lot. (The belief "everyone is bisexual" is very common among the people my age who I have met.)

And this is why I have lack of trust in a lot of the self-identification into LGBT. I think a lot of lesbians closer to my age have had enough experience by now to see conclude that the vast majority of women are not actually bisexual. But at least in part because pressure into performative female bisexuality for male benefit is forced on young girls and women, now coupled with the gave that LGBT identification is seen as connoting virtue and open-mindedness, there is so much incentive to identify in.

We all have stories of things along the lines of a girl who has kissed one or more girls while drunk or been in a threesome considering herself bisexual when it’s not sexual attraction to women that drove her into that activity. Additionally, some people like to test out and explore their sexual boundaries so they may mistake lack of sexual repulsion to the same sex as attraction, which I think is very different. I think to be very experimental, that lack of repulsion is key and I think that also has degrees. Some women can just make out with anyone but do they have an interest in eating or fingering a pussy? Are they turned on by a woman’s body outside of picturing themselves in a porn fantasy?

I feel like there has been an increase in young self-identifying “pansexual” women like this who my friends have had a lot of experience with lately, and they seem very detached and at odds with lesbians and very much come across as tourists. If you’re like me and not super keen on a relationship right now, it’s not the worst thing in the world, but it does feel like they’re trying to earn some street cred for being open-minded and to check that box before going back to men. They also seem very disconnected from the contours of their own sexual orientation, like they can’t describe what they find attractive in women (meanwhile, let me write you a novel), and fall back on cliches like “I’m attracted to everyone” or “I’m into everyone,” which honestly we know can’t be true. They often don’t come out at all to their families because why bother when they know they’re not going to end up in a same-sex relationship long term. And another thing I’ve noticed with some of them is that they hang around LGB people/lesbians, and there appears to be some imitation going on. Given my own circumstance, that’s hard to understand but I’ve seen it enough that I can see it’s a thing that’s happening. Like the trans/nb social contagion but often with less grooming.

So is this meaningfully bisexual/LGB? Yea IDK and I’d like to hear the perspective from bisexuals here on saidit, especially about the difference between attraction to both sexes (even if it’s uneven) vs lack of repulsion to one sex.

Plus now we have heterosexual and bisexual females identifying as lesbians and being the ones to date trans-identifying males. I think my time in r/LBL has ruined me because it’s so pervasive there that people are out of touch with their own sexual orientation and a lot of collective delusion as they rush to validate each other. Meanwhile they stay in their marriages and just buy flannel and jean jackets, post selfies, and gush over lesbian Tik Tok. Not to mention the whole “Tik tok made me gay” thing is not even actually satire because bored/boring people see lesbian/LGBT as a lifestyle and aesthetic.

[–]votkriscan 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Look hey, I'm just talking about what I find to be an observable belief, that's all. There are many who don't wish for LGB people to exist and I'm going to take that into account. But more to the point, what you wrote, at least from how I interpreted it, seems to insinuate that lesbians are getting into LDRs due to being 3-5% of the population.

Except, there is also another group that is roughly 3-5%. The so-called extremely wealthy, and they are not getting into LDRs. In fact, straight/bi women in that strata marry rather strictly within cultural, country, location and ethnicity lines. So, this doesn't explain any kind of LDR phenomenon between lesbians. Hence, together with my belief, is the reasoning that it's largely due to the number of lesbians not being equally distributed and far less about the smaller population ratio.

Lastly, I don't even know why you are taking this personally. I was just simply stating my opinion. It was never intended to be of a personal nature.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I highly doubt researchers are deliberately destroying data for 5-7% (which is huge in terms of data) of the LGBT community just because of homophobia, especially when these studies are based on self-reporting, were actually conducted within the 21st century, and the second study was conducted by a gay man.

You:

But more to the point, what you wrote, at least from how I interpreted it, seems to insinuate that lesbians are getting into LDRs due to being 3-5% of the population.

Hence, together with my belief, is the reasoning that it's largely due to the number of lesbians not being equally distributed

I literally wrote in my last post:

many (most?) lesbians don't live near major cities so we have to branch out further to find more women like us

So yeah, you just keep repeating me. Also, you don't think our population size has something to do with distribution?

I feel like your insistence that we're 10% is because the activist gay community has been saying it for decades, especially during the fight for same-sex marriage in the US when homophobes didn't want to change the laws for "a few people" so we had to say we were more in numbers because discrimination against 10% of the population "looks worse" than discrimination against 3-5%. Here's the thing: we could be 1% of the population and that wouldn't make the fight for gay rights any less important since we literally just want the same things straight people want (but legally) and we're not demanding crazy ass things like access to opposite-sex spaces or suing people for not using our preferred pronouns.

Your wealthy people analogy is another false comparison because wealthy people can actually date anyone of the economic spectrum; nothing stops them from doing so other than keeping their wealth and reputations away from "the poors." A lesbian wouldn't and couldn't date someone outside a sexuality or gender that matches hers.

The population is closer towards 10%, which still makes it a very small population (1/10).

The very first line of your original response to me.

Lastly, I don't even know why you are taking this personally. I was just simply stating my opinion. It was never intended to be of a personal nature.

I literally took nothing "personally." You went out of your way to "correct" me and state your personal belief and opinion as fact, you were proven wrong, and now you're mad about being called out on it so you're calling me oversensitive. If anything, you're the one taking the proof that you were wrong personally just because of what you choose to believe. Sound familiar?