Using Malcolm Gladwell to Stop LGBT Suicides and Start LGBT Life

Love and Abomination - Coming On Tuesday for Valentine's Day

I recently published on Gay Fresno about the problem of publicizing LGBT teen suicides in an opinion piece. I made the claim that these suicides were only going to become worse if LGBT media sources continued to publicize the suicides. The suicide path for these teens has changed significantly as well. Now it is becoming a political statement as I discuss in my opinion piece.

Suicide: When It Becomes an Option –

"… it seems like the suicides are becoming more desperate. Jacob Rogers left his passwords so people could blatantly see that his suicide was directly thought out. His suicide was premeditated with the intention of people knowing the reasoning for his suicide. And even more dramatically, a teen Jamey Rodemeyer, who created an It Get's Better Video committed suicide shortly thereafter."

"…it could be possible that with the It Get's Better Project, the constant throw up of LGBT suicide statistics, and the persistent coverage of LGBT suicides in the media is creating a viral self fulfilling prophecy for the LGBT community. With all this information in the air and with the thousands of LGBT teens who track these stories and statistics, the teens could be joining in solidarity by committing suicide as sort of twisted mass hysteria in protest."

It turns out that my opinion piece has more validity than I had originally thought. I am reading Malcolm Gladwell’s  Tipping Point where he describes the functions of different epidemics. In his chapter Suicide, Smoking, and the Unsticky Cigarette; he discusses the phenomenon of what seems to be classified as “mass suicide”.

“. . . the act of one person taking his or her own life can be contagious. Suicides lead to suicides.”

Gladwell relies heavily on from Phillips’ research that suggests the publication of suicides raises the rate of suicides. This can happen both in small sociological spheres as well as on the national scale. Gladwell reflects on the studies finding saying, “Sure enough, there was.[referring to the relationship between publicity in prominent newspapers and increase in rates of suicide] Immediately after stories about suicides appeared, suicides in the area served by the newspaper jumped. In the case of national stories, the rate jumped nationally.”

Gladwell quotes Phillips on the following page.

“Suicide stories are a kind of natural advertisement for a particular response to your problems,” Phillips continues. “You’ve got all these people who are unhappy and have difficulty making up their minds because they are depressed. They are living with this pain. There are lots of stories advertising different kinds of responses to that."

One can conclude from this that the proliferation of LGBT suicide stories over the past couple of years has likely perpetuated drastically the rate of suicides. The suicides are even coming soon after the creation of the It Get’s Better videos with messages relating their suicide to the bullying which has started the phrase bullycide. And words like this have a tendency to legitimize the act. If there is a word for it, the act becomes normal and acceptable.

How do we go about making living and being proud the appropriate response to bullying and other forms of systemized oppression faced by the queer community? My solution is to start publishing the little stories where people stand up to oppression and the bullying. My solution is to publish the stories of those individuals who didn’t commit suicide but even overcame their suicidal thinking. As I write at the end of the Gay Fresno article, “Cover a story where someone thought about suicide, but chose to live. Those are the stories where the answers to suicide prevention are going to be hiding.”

From Love and Abomination - Coming On Tuesday for Valentine's Day

The B-I-B-L-E
I know the bible better than the churchgoers.
It’s my biggest trouble.
My resource.
Told I am going to hell.
And I laugh at inappropriate times.
Then suicide crosses the mind.
A fleeting thought.
Frightening me.
Threatening me.
And I share this transparency.
Because.
I’m not the only one.
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The Thomas Theorem - Another Look at Gaydar

Love and Abomination - Book of Political Poetry!

As my close readers know, I switched from studying psychology to studying sociology. I used to say sociology and psychology were the same thing. One studied the individual whereas the other studied groups of people. In retrospect, there are fundamental differences between the two fields of academia. Psychology generally describes things drawing upon evolutionary and biological principles whereas sociology draws upon more of the interpretation of the symbols we interact with everyday. This immediately sounds like symbolic interactionism however I am talking a little broader than this.

What’s frustrating is that when it comes to describing certain phenomenon, psychology likes to say it’s some sort of innate evolutionary benefit where as sociology likes to say the language we acquire shapes the norms so to speak. This is a social constructionist view.

(But, don’t take my word for it. I don’t have a doctorate. I’m just a pondering student belittling myself. Because, apparently a doctorate qualifies my knowledge more than just the simple study of the subject.)
Let’s take the little I have learned in my social psychology class, as well as my understanding of what I have accumulated in my study of psychology prior to this and compare apples to oranges. Let’s take a crucial look at the topic of gaydar.

Some people claim to have gaydar while others say they think their gaydar sucks. When it comes to the subject of gaydar, many activists feel it is largely based on stereotypes and completely meaningless. Take Davey Wavey’s advice on the subject.



Though this viewpoint is nice, it can be largely confusing for those who subscribe to the ideas offered in areas that pitch the evolutionary viewpoint. Quite shockingly, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that gaydar and stereotypes hold some validity in scientific fact. (This terrifies many sociologists.) For example, in Farm Boys, Fellows identifies a profile for the gay men he interviewed.

With few exceptions, the boys whose stories are presented here fit a common profile with regard to their involvement in farm work. They generally sought to avoid fieldwork and the repair and maintenance of farm machinery and vehicles.

However, when it came to more “feminine” elements of farm work, these gay men did have a preference for, “. . . care, feeding, and breeding of livestock and the cleaning and maintenance of these animals’ shelters. . .”

But what do gay farm boys have to do with gaydar, psychology, or sociology? Farm Boys, though not intended to be used for conclusions, was considered research in the broad sense of the word according to its author Will Fellows. The research is surprisingly like intensive interviews commonly used by sociologists, but in regards to the finds in gender roles, the boys preferred to play on the farm. The research finds gender bending which is correlative to several queer identities later in life.

Jesse Bering writes in his fantastic and academically holistic blog Bering in Mind about a number of studies that discuss gender bending behavior in gay men and lesbian women. Specifically in regards to gay men Jesse states, “. . . 89 percent of randomly sampled gay men recalled cross-sex-typed childhood behaviors exceeding the heterosexual median.” (Is your Child a "prehomosexual?)

This viewpoint suggests something separate from what our friend Davey Wavey states. Though it is true that many people have picked up a more contemporary “metrosexual” look and life in seemingly more progressive places, there is something innate about the ambiguous variance between men and women and the differences in orientations. (This all unfortunately reinforces the shallow cultural gender/sex binary!) If there is something innate about behavior and interests in gay men and women, would this suggest that gaydar does, to some extent exist?

Psychology Today suggests from a biological deterministic perspective that yes, it does. But the problem is, it isn’t very accurate. Which for us gays searching the world for love, is petrifying! (Gaydar: It Takes 50 Milliseconds to Identify a Man’s Sexual Orientation.)

A study was done to see if people, primarily women, could predict the sexual orientations of gay men based off viewing photos for incremental amounts of time. The results suggested that gaydar had some degree of validity. The author on Psychology Today even writes, “The bottom line is that people can judge a man's sexual orientation accurately (i.e., above chance level), and can do so within as little as 50 milliseconds.” It is important to note that accurate here is defined as, above chance level.

However, looking at the results of the study, it would be a stretch to think that gaydar should be used at all. It is a pretty unsophisticated tool. If it were my speedometer, I would be getting it fixed up immediately. I just don’t like the results.

Here are the accuracy rates across the six conditions:

33 ms: 0.50
50 ms: 0.57
100 ms: 0.62
6,500 ms: 0.58
10,000 ms: 0.60
Self-paced: 0.62

Even at a self paced, taking your time interval, the accuracy is at 62%. Tying this statistic into the what is called the Thomas Theorem, “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”, I come to the conclusion that sure, you can take your chances with gaydar, and like me believe your gaydar is at 100% accuracy, but you will suffer the consequences. It can be heart breaking to fall in love with someone you think is gay bi etc only to find out your gaydar was completely wrong. 62% is not accurate. Would you drive a car if you could only rely on it 62% of the time? I wouldn’t. Nor do I subscribe to the idea of gaydar, even though I use to! (I have become a sociological thinker! Frightening!)

Minnesota Blogger Creates Book of Poems Rejecting Minnesota Marriage Amendment.

Love and Abomination - Press Release

Jacob Woods, who has written for his blog Good as Gay for two years, spent the month of January preparing his book of poems Love and Abomination. Scheduled to be released February 14th just in time for Valentine’s day, the book of poems aims to get at more than just love. Its message is highly politicized. Love and Abomination is written in direct opposition to the Minnesota amendment on the ballot for November 6th, as well as in opposition to bigotry, oppression, discrimination, and hate.

The official description reads, “Political poetry that rips into the souls by strumming the emotional strings of the bigoted consciousness. Touches the truth surrounding the gay and lesbian marriage debate facing the nation.”

Jacob Woods was born and raised on the Iron Range living next to the mining pits on the outskirts of Hibbing Minnesota where he attended most of grade school. Much of his time was spent exploring forty acres of forest with brief pestering from his two older brothers. In the summers while his mother attended college to become a teacher, Jacob had spent time living with his grandma and grandpa as well as his aunt and uncle. A chapter is titled the Redneck Parallel which looks at this time period.

Macaroni and Tomato Soup is a poem from this chapter of the book.

          Macaroni and Tomato Soup

I remember one time my grandmother put leftover Mac N Cheese in tomato soup. It was disgusting and my grandfather said it tasted just fine. It’s like my grandparents forgot they lost their taste buds. I think the issue is I hide too much of what I honestly think. We live in a society that condones dishonesty and condemns honesty. That way, we can avoid our feelings. It would hurt their feelings if I told them the truth. And then they would condemn me, banishing me to hell. Over my opinions on Mac N Cheese and tomato soup. My best bet is to just shut up and eat it.

Other chapter titles include; Message to The Haters, This is What Love Is, Growing Up, and End Notes.

Jacob became interested in creative writing when he moved to Hutchinson Minnesota where he attended high school. He returned to the Iron Range to study one year at Itasca Community College before transferring happily to Hamline in the Twin Cities where he now studies Creative Writing and Sociology. Jacob can be reached through his blog at Good as Gay and Love and Abomination will be available to purchase on Amazon Valentine’s day. Links will be available on the Good as Gay blog, Facebook page, and Twitter as well.

Love and Abomination - Back Story
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Love and Abomination - The Back Story

I know I have a couple of writer friends who would like to perhaps know a little about the process I went through to get Love and Abomination to this point where it is ready to be published. It is also cool just to read about the process as well! There will be a little about the writing process, a little about the editing process, a little about the publishing process, and a little about the promotional process.

I knew from the start going into this that poetry doesn't sell well. I have read countless articles both online and offline telling me that people just don't buy poetry. That is precisely why I decided to go the self publication route. But, just because I decided to go with Create Space, doesn't mean that Love and Abomination didn't see a critique/editing process nor does that mean it won't be picked up by a large publisher in the future. It surely doesn’t mean I am a terrible poet, however, this is my first book of poems, so who knows what you’ll think of it! You’ll have to buy it! That would be pretty cool if that happened. That aside, what was my approach to writing Love and Abomination?

This book has been long in the making. Which seems silly because it is a short book of powerful political poems. I have read through my old journal entries from my angsty teenage years a dozen times searching for book content. First I was just going to publish my journals raw, but after putting those journals up on both Myspace and here at Good as Gay, they didn't receive nearly the feedback or attention they would need if it had been a full publication. Perhaps, that will be another day’s project long from now. (I am playing with surrealism and tying in concepts of feminism and gender. We will see how that goes!)

Many of you also know I was going to publish a book called MascuFeminity. I had been speaking rather ignorantly of that book for a whole summer saying I was pumping out chapters. But what I had was raw content that needs to be fine tuned for clarity by many experts in Creative Non-fiction (CNF.) Plus, after getting angry and punching a computer in, transferring to a new college, and jumping computer to computer to write the rough draft of MascuFemity, the manuscript exists in a couple of jump drives, a couple of computers, and several emails with Aaron in New Zealand. That fell apart.

I went back to the drawing board and decided on a book of poems called Love and Abomination. I assumed that poetry would be easier than other forms. I was wrong. I had to read through about a hundred some journal entries reaching into the most tumultuous and self deprecating section of my soul while dangerously sifting for content that would fit the title and purpose in my head for Love and Abomination. In one read through I simply selected anything that would fit into this concept of discussing oppression and the damages of bigotry. After selecting portions, I had to rewrite these selections and strain out any content that didn't fit well into these boxes I had created for the book. From there, I rewrote sections to make them sound both more poetic as well as sophisticated. Luckily, I had some quotes and poems that stuck out and fit in nearly perfectly without changes. This was nice. Nonetheless, most of the poems were alterations of journal content. A select few poems, however, were recently created and added in as well. So, it is a mix of a little old talent and new talent so to speak.

At this point, everything was still on paper. One evening I sat down and got everything from paper onto a word document. From there, I went forth to put these poems into chapter sections. I didn't like this, but, everyone seems so happy with chapters these days. I hated putting my poems into chapters because I had to box them into categories which caused me to delete fully written poems that didn't fit in. Though, this was another sifting process that ultimately got rid of pieces of poetry that would throw readers out of line with the original concepts. I was warned to keep everything in a certain topic area. But, one of these days I am just going to throw a shit ton of poems into one book just because I can and because I like to reject any form of convention.

Poetry, especially Love and Abomination, has been more for myself than anyone else. (I do what I want.)
I had my fancy little manuscript. My question was who would want to edit a book of poetry about queer issues? Did I want them involved? Would they tell me I sucked at writing and tell me to never again attempt to put pen to paper?

I found out that my friends were more than willing to help me out in the editing/critiquing process for a small fee. First, as originally planned, I will be giving out signed copies of the final product to those who I selected to help me critique/publish. Secondly, any individuals you ask to help you out are likely to send you copies of their own works to be edited and critiqued. To be honest, I loved giving feedback to their projects of research as well as creative writing. I don't mind that at all. It's a small price to say, you pat my back I'll pat yours. Deal was done.

Lastly, going through the publishing process on Create Space is really simple. For poetry, there is nothing easier. It is terrifying how easily one can make themselves look professional. Or, make themselves a fool because they didn't go through the editing process carefully enough. I am praying that there are no errors in Love and Abomination. But it's hard to tell because I like to reject comma rules and finicky details. Poetry is sort of, whatever these days when it comes to structure. It's free like the birds. And I let loose. The only real fear I had was my cover design. To be honest, you can make a good cover on your own with a little research in graphic design. My cover could be better, but, I have seen worse. Plus, it's poetry and again, I am personally not too concerned about it selling. It could be the best cover in the world and still not sell simply because it is poetry. It's also within a very narrow category as well, gay and lesbian poetry. This could either help or hinder its sales as well depending on a number of factors out of my control.

In the end, I ordered my proof and am very satisfied with the end product. Now I am promoting it. I have a couple of means of going about this. I have some twitter tweeps who are on board for Retweeting, some tumblr friends who I am going to ask to promote the book, and a couple of blogs I am going to guest post on discussing both the bigotry Love and Abomination is trying to obliterate. I created a press release as well which I will share tomorrow. (Send an Email to Jacoblogger@live.com if you are interested now!)  This press release will be sent to bloggers, writers, journalists, etc on the queer interwebs. Basically, the more the merrier. It helps to network as much as you can before starting out. I also want to share individual poems on a couple of online forums and on Tumblr both prior and after to the release of the book of poems. There are also several spoken word events I will likely attend as well in the Twin Cities! I am so excited! I will keep you posted - but it's difficult to tell with studying between doing a book launch! Yikes!

Wish me luck everyone. Thank you to everyone who has been fantastic in the creation of this book of poems. It means the world to me.

Again, press release for Love and Abomination is available upon request. Just email me at jacoblogger@live.com ! I am welcome to any questions as well.
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Captain Kirk and LGBT FanFiction

Dianna blogs at Sociology for Nerds - Her most recent post is Symbols of Identity: The RedShirt Conundrum if you love Goffman, you'll love this! Plus, Star Trek Gurus go a long way! (that's what she said?)

It’s nearing three in the morning, and I have class tomorrow (today?).

But class doesn’t really matter. What matters now is finishing my research proposal. You see, Hamline University encourages its students to conduct research with faculty every summer. They are so encouraging that they are willing to fund this research with $2,500 dollars and a free room. It’s a difficult process to get accepted, but I am willing to go the extra mile.

And I did get accepted. And I did conduct my research. And now, I will explain it to you.

I researched a phenomenon known as “fanfiction.” Fanfiction is a genre of writing written by fans of another author’s work. It can be a continuation of a Star Trek episode, a description of what Pride and Prejudice would have looked like in the 25th century, or simply fans playing with characters they didn’t invent. And it’s a huge genre.

Dozens of websites devoted to hosting these fanfictions exist, each with hundreds of thousands of fictions and thousands of fan-writers. They were created as safe spaces to engage in writing a rather political genre.
You see, some fanfiction is about (gasp) gay people. Or even (double gasp) trans* people.
These fanfictions are known as slash and gender-bending respectively, and they were the focus of my research.

I studied nineteen of these fanfictions looking for themes of deviant sexuality, gender, relationship to or mention of “real life” gender and sexuality experiences, language, and character emotion. “Real life” can be anything from internal and external homophobia and transphobia, trying to hide oneself, or struggling with identity in a way that a 21st century person would.

I found a lot of interesting things.

First, fanfiction authors love to mention homosexuality and bisexuality in their writing. They do it all the time, but rarely with any mention of real life experiences. Captain Kirk is the biggest offender. He’s almost always cast as a practicing bisexual. He’s had past relationships with women and men, and that is what drives the character he is within the realm of fanfiction. Even when authors are attempting to enter Kirk into a heterosexual relationship (such as with a now-female McCoy) they are compelled to remind the reader that Kirk has a bisexual past.

This is incredibly interesting when compared to how fanfiction authors treat trans* and intersex characters. These characters frequently wax philosophical about their internal and external experiences, and other characters react to them in very real ways. Sometimes this comes about when a transman questions his life and relationships. Sometimes this happens when an intersex Kirk is accidentally exposed on an away mission, only to begin a relationship with his first officer. These stories are usually dramatic, emotional, and true to the reality of contemporary experiences as described by many trans* and intersex individuals.

Fanfiction is written about very political topics. Academics have argued for decades about whether fanfiction is many things. Is it political? homophobic? anti-patriarchy? pornography for women? amateur? groundbreaking? conscious? unconscious? Whatever it is, it is clear that fanfiction writers enjoy creating their art.

In addition, fanfiction communities are designed to be safe spaces. Fanfiction authors closely moderate the content that they allow on their websites. There also exists many short-hand ways of communicating a good feeling (like “thumbs up”) but no quick ways of communicating a bad feeling. Fanfiction readers seem determined to encourage writing in all its forms.

You can encourage fanfiction writers in their expression of deviant sexualities and genders, too. Check out websites like archiveofourown.org or fanfiction.net for generic lists of hundreds of fanfictions. For all-ages websites, you can check out thyla.com, which is devoted to Star Trek Kirk/Spock slash at a PG 13 rating. These and other websites influenced my findings, and are extremely interesting to peruse.

If you’d like to learn more about fanfiction and other nerdy topics you can check out my blog. In addition, I’m looking to expand my research further by interviewing fanfiction writers themselves. If you are or know someone who is a fanfiction writer, feel free to contact me! I’d love to hear from you.

Remember to check out, Sociology For Nerds

Love and Abomination will be released on Feb 14th.