By Paul Varnell

No one doubts that gay men and lesbians constitute a single political movement. We have political goals in common: the right to marry, the right to serve in the military, tax and benefit equality for couples, the right to adopt children. In addition, we all face the ever-present possibility of discrimination and prejudice by governments, churches, employers and neighbors, which we have a common interest in reducing. But are we members of a single gay/lesbian community?

As men and women we are obviously different from each other. So are heterosexual men and women, of course, but sexual desire forces them to seek each other’s company and spend time together. Lacking that desire for the other sex, gays and lesbians seem to have less reason to interrelate.

The maps of gay and lesbian couples’ residential patterns in the “Gay and Lesbian Atlas” show that although where gays and lesbians live overlaps somewhat, there are also noticeable divergences. In addition, it is clear that gay men are far more inclined to cluster together in one or a few areas while lesbians tend to be dispersed more widely throughout other areas of a city or suburbs. The “gay enclave” is a disproportionately male phenomenon.

Gays and lesbians also socialize differently. Many gay men enjoy going to bars to relax, meet friends and look for a potential partner, but few lesbians do. Lesbians seem to socialize more through social groups and sports. There are many gay bars in San Francisco, but few if any lesbian bars. That cannot be a result of lower lesbian income levels: Men at all income levels have always been able to find a few dollars for a beer at the corner tavern. Similarly, gay men make considerable use of the Internet to get together with people but there is little evidence that lesbians do so.

Gays and lesbians differ markedly in their sexual psychology, rooted ultimately in their different biology. As Prof. Donald Symons pointed out in “The Evolution of Human Sexuality,” gays and lesbians exhibit an exaggerated version of male-female differences due to the fact that men are relating to men and women to women. Gay men are comfortable seeking out multiple partners—an ongoing series of brief hook-ups—and with coupled partners having outside contacts.

This is partly due to high male levels of testosterone. But some studies have found that gay men have even higher levels of testosterone than heterosexual men.

Lesbians, by contrast, seem to bond quickly and strongly with a partner at least for a time, so they tend to have longer relationships, remaining with a partner even after the initial sexual spark has attenuated. This is likely attributable not only to females’ lower levels of testosterone but to high levels of oxytocin, a chemical that promotes bonding. Promiscuity is rare among lesbians. Even among heterosexual couples, women provide most of the glue that keeps relationships together.

Gays and lesbians also seem to diverge markedly in their way of understanding their sexual orientation. A recent Kaiser Permanente survey of smoking patterns among gays and lesbians, with no other obvious selectivity bias, also asked about how respondents described their sexual orientation. Of the 1,052 men queried, 85 percent said they were “gay”; 7 percent said they were “bisexual”; and 8 percent described themselves as “men who have sex with men.”

This reflects what psychologist C.A. Tripp pointed out in “The Homosexual Matrix” as “the polarizing tendency of male sexual conditioning…(and) the rapid building up of aversions to any and all competing alternatives.”

For lesbians, by contrast, barely a third, 34 percent, of the 898 women queried said they were “lesbian.” Almost as many, 29 percent, said they were “bisexual;” and the largest category, 37 percent, described themselves as “women who have sex with women.”

Whether or not we entertain doubts about the interest or commitment of bisexuals in the gay/lesbian movement or community, we may certainly doubt the interest and commitment of men and women who entirely deny the labels gay, lesbian or bisexual and limit their acknowledgment only to some same-sex behavior.

None of this is to judge the relative merits of gay men’s or lesbians’ lives, only to point to the differences that fail to draw us together and make mutual comprehension difficult. Nor is it to deny that there are doubtless exceptions to these generalizations, only that the general tendencies diverge.

But to the extent we successfully reduce prejudice and discrimination there will be decreasing reason for gays and lesbians to meet on the common ground of a political movement, so any remaining gay and lesbian community may, like an amoeba, divide entirely in two.

Some of Paul Varnell’s previous columns are posted at the Independent Gay Forum (www.indegayforum.org). His e-mail address is pvarnell@aol.com.