Posts Tagged → facts and figures
Gaydar.
Yes ….. another sex-ed post ……. not as raunchy as most would like but there you go ……
We’ve all watched Will and Grace, The L-word and Queer as Folk and have borne witness to that magical 6th sense known as the Gaydar and although many of you might think it was just an urban myth or something as simple as seeing if the guy gets a manicure or the girl chooses to let moustache run rampant …… think again …..
The gaydar is probably best defined as the ability to pic out or discern the gender of a person with a relatively high accuracy. It’s been studied by psychiatrists (finally made themselves useful), gender studies experts and even neurologists and the results are quite interesting. For one thing thanks to the work of Ambady, Hallahan and Conner (Currently tenuring at Tufts I believe) we can now say hand on heart that if you showed a one second clip or even a photo of a person to a group of gay and straight men and women, gay men are by far the most likely to guess the gender correctly while straight men wouldn’t know a gay man if he bought him a beer and gave him a quick rub down ……
Which means that the so-called gaydar is actually one of those things that you need to learn, practice and hone. Unlike sexual orientation (which is one of those things you are born with); you actually need to work at it and learn it and the reason why gay men are better at it than say, gay women or the straight population is because gay men need it to “survive”. Thanks to societal pressures and the fact that it is/was largely considered taboo gay men have had to get really good at it to prevent a beat down, loss of their jobs etc …..
Having said that various panels, questionnaires and studies have been conducted to analyze exactly how the thing works and to this day they cant say that it depends on hair, behaviour, skin color, appearance or anything else. But they can say the it’s a type of intuition or impulse which means that it relies on a preconceived idea and is therefor hotwired over time.
So it’s not something that requires active thinking but is rather something that we do subconsciously by taking in the person as a whole. Kind of like the type of thing you’d do when picking out a friend on your first day of school. You talk to them but you don’t know why you do it exactly.
The problem with this type of hotwiring is that it’s labile and isn’t 100% efficient … it’s also easily lost if not used enough (which explains why straight men are crap at it). It largely depends on the following:
- experience: whether you’ve actually seen or are exposed to people of varying sexual orientation, and if you, yourself are comfortable with yours.
- mood state
- Stereotypes you may have with regards to clothing, a lisp or say pink hair.
- Predispositions: do you want the ride that fine ass? or hoo hoo?
So when all is said and done it’s kind of one of these things that does exist, but you have to work on ….. alot. You also have to clear your head for it to work right and you pretty much have to go out there and let that freak flag fly!
But there is an important question that none of the studies mentioned above tries to address and that point is probably the most important and interesting of all; as homosexuality becomes more socially acceptable will the need to hone this skill dwindle? Will that sixth sense shrink like a residual organ and be left a useless remnant of it’s formal self?
Could a Liberal Society kill the gaydar?
Only time will tell ……
Even the Birds and the Bees do it.
Sorry if this article seems a little too much. It was very hard to write simply because I’m straight and have very rarely had the privilege of writing about the gay community. Not that they ever need defending …..
“It’s a real disease, they should all be burned that way there’ll be no gays. Think about it, you get rid of the problem all at once”
When I heard that I decided I hated all homophobes, they’re a bunch of people who are either ignorant or just plain old idiots. I heard that from a friend not two weeks after he became a doctor, I was still a student. I also found out that a fair chunk of doctors don’t really try to understand people and would rather stick to learning things like the rate, rhythm and character of a pulse or how to describe a funny looking rash.
The statement not only showed a deep lack of empathy for his fellow brethren, its also shows a complete lack of understanding of our fundamental behaviour as species. For one thing it isn’t a disease nor is it a symptom of one. Homosexuality has been part of our innate behaviour as mammals since the dawn of time; there are infact over 1500 species that have displayed and documented homosexual behavior. Here’s a list stolen from wikipedia Show ▼
And despite the best efforts of many “doctors” and “psychologists” it’s not exactly something that needs fixing or infact should be fixed. They’ve tried everything from aversion therapy (which failed on both penguins and humans), to medication, to electro shock therapy and even religious killings and floggings with practically no success (perhaps they keep failing because it’s a part of human nature?)
I’ve always regarded sexual orientation as being akin to left or right handedness. There are people who are left handed, people who are right handed and people who are ambidextrous and enjoy both worlds and then there are people who are somehwhere in the middle and can do somethings with the left and somethings with the right. But I’ve increasingly begun to see that it’s far more than that. Most of us are now in our mid to late twenties (a couple are probably hitting their 70′s and are reading this blog hoping that it’ll be a dummies guide to euthenasia and some of you are probably 8 or 9 year olds who are here for the toilet humor) and have at some point longed for or have experienced an connection with a person of the opposite sex. We probably treasure memmories of that time and tend to look back on it very often. Imagine if you could only experience that with someone of your own sex and try and understand the feelings of disgust and disdain you’d face from everyone around you including pillars of your community; that’s what gay people have to go through in our society today ….. and that’s why I for one can say I admire them for their strength and fortitude when they do “come out” and try to function in a society that loaths them and wants to send them all to hell for no real reason.
And when I say no real reason I do mean that. I have yet to see a single point against homosexuality that I couldn’t argue against. The most common and generic is that they tend to have a higher incedences of STDs within their community ….. fucking garbage , the strictly lesbian population has the lowest incdence of HIV when compared with heterosexual and other homosexual groups according to the NAM (National AIDS Manual) and although the homosexual male population was at some point the group with the highest prevalence of HIV the number is now going down drastically over the past 10 years, where as the numbers for normal folk seem to have been on the sharp rise since 2003. Another arguement that I keep hearing is that it goes against God and nature …. please click the show button a couple of lines up, read the whole thing and then explain how this goes against nature when it has populated natural history since the dawn of time.
Another good one is that it’s” a disease that keeps spreading “…… I always answer that one by asking for numbers ….. which most people can’t give me. I then rattle of my own set of numbers comparing a kinsey series from the 1940′s and 50′s with a modern survey of similar scope conducted by a whole gaggle of people all agree that the number of people who have had some homosexual tendencies varies between 25-33% andthe number who are openly and strictly homosexual is around about 5%. (well more like 4-10%) which means that the numbers haven’t really changed drastically over the past 60 years and are probably not likely to change either. The Kinsey numbers are also significant because they mean that at least a third of your friends and family have at one point thought of batting for the other team as it were (just have a look around your dewaniya the next time you’re there)
Besides think of how much easier dating would be i Kuwait if you were gay, you could come and go as you pleased. Go on dinner dates, kiss in public and live together and no one would bat an eye lid. I’ve often thought about it but alas the hoo hoo has me wrapped up in its mystical spell ……. having to work under cloak and dagger and keep sneaking in public is definitely a worthy price to pay for the love of the hoo hoo …….
So the next time you see someone who is gay (or more likely someone you may think is gay and have used as a butt for every joke at the office) try and put yourself in thier shoes, the poor bastard isn’t blind nor deaf; he’s just willing to put up with your snickering ……
Curing Cancer….. Yes it is worth it ……
Apologies …… I’m actually going to try and argue out a serious point here ….. and yes, I am well aware that the fine people who run Q8Health could probably do a better job at this sort of thing* (serious medical stuff …. involving educated arguments, etc.)….. I just thought I’d give it a go anyway …..
We’ve all been touched by cancer. We all know what it feels like and are well aware that there is never a happy ending, only some comfort in the fact that a person is eventually cured. We also know that the ministry spends alot of money ….. far more than most other government institutions and rarely has to face cutbacks despite under-performance year in and year-out; not to mention the fact that we’ve become one of German Healthcares’ top ten sources of income and have spent so much at The London Clinic we practically own the damn thing.
So when someone finds a vaccine for cervical cancer (fifth most deadly cancer in women worldwide) . (the cervix is the front part of the uterus…….. it’s kind of like the bumper ….) you’d expect our people to be all over it (if only so that Dar Al Shifa, Royal Hayat and the other ones can fill their coffers).
And just so we’re clear we’re not talking about some vaccine based on sharks cartilage, Chinese herbs or chanting like some Sherpa, we’re talking about a 3 – shot vaccine (sorry girls …. it’s either 3 needles or cancer ….. you just have to tough it out I’m afraid). And the best part is that it actually does work and has undergone numerous clinical trials (with practically no side effects).
A Specimen of a uterus and cervix …. the big ball is the cancer … well a tumor … it may not be cancer … but it does look like it.
The drug itself (known as Gardasil) doesn’t actually kill cancer cells, instead it provides women with immunity against the leading cause of the cancer (the human papilloma virus). The virus is in most of the male and female population by their late teens (in most countries) and is also the leading cause of genital warts (the things that stick out like skin tags …. commonly present as anal warts in our 16-20 female population …. I wonder why …. ). At the moment it’s only approved for 12-16 year old girls who are not sexually active and have therefor yet to be exposed to the virus but is probably safe for the general population.
At a time when our healthcare budget is about 962 million and we spend well over 100 million KD trying to give people a summer vacation in Germany while some distant relative gets his tooth taken out, surely we can afford to spend a couple of million instigating what could be a landmark campaign against cancer. For one thing the drug itself doesn’t cost all that much (about 300-500 dollars per person …. which isn’t alot for a cancer cure …. if it were me I’d charge you bastards at least 2 grand a piece ….. and yes, that is in KD) and our population isn’t all the big. Then there’s the fact that we have a department in every hospital specifically assigned to giving out vaccines (It’s the public call it Preventive Medicine …… we call it medical nirvana …. no sick leave, no fights, no sick patients and no dead people).
So using the numbers from the CIA world factbook (apparently we have a population of 2,596,799 (including expats and those of us who aren’t fortunate enough to have full citizenship) and a below 14 female population of 338,634) which when multiplied by the cost of the vaccine (500 dollars) and a 30% markup the local drug dealers (= people who have distribution rights in the country and tend to peg the prices according to arbitrary numbers their kids dialed on their mobile phones) would amount to a grand total of about $220,112,100 and sure 220 million dollars (64,399,298.03 KD) is alot but it’s only a 6.7 percent increase in our total healthcare budget for this year (2009-2010) and would make sense economically since the cost to treat cervical cancer in Kuwait is astronomical (everybody wants to go to Germany or the States and those who don’t end up having to wait for aaaages to get any treatment)
It would also do our side (I can’t believe I just referred to the ministry of health as “our side” … ugh ….. ) a world of good in terms of publicity (especially after that video with the babies head pulled off …. and yes, from what I’ve heard it was a still birth ….. just steer clear of a romanian midwafe at Jahrah … just incase … ) if they were one of the first middle eastern countries to “cure” cervical cancer (it’d be like the good old days …… before leopard hijabes, annoying stickers and idiots who over do it with the hair straightener ….. the fuckwits).
However as with any form of progress and any ideas which actually involve thinking and enthusiasm it’ll probably never see the light of day ….. we still don’t have it available in the damn country …… oh well …….
At least people in the U.K. might get lucky ……..
* No, I’m not being sarcastic, I actually think that you’re one of the very few places on the internet where public healthcare reform in Kuwait is actually being discussed in a correct and mature manner.
Doc Brinkley: Talk about a Load of Bull
Was reading about the boo ha ha a certain group of doctors have been making about their colleagues at Adan in the paper. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones still they should thank their lucky stars they ain’t working with this fuck-up.
Part of Brinkleys Mega-Bucks Advertising Campaign
It was 1915 and young John R Brinkley, having spent the last 8 years trying to get through the first four years of medical school had finally decided that medical school was not for him, so he joined the Eclectic Medical University in Kansas and for a rather reasonable fee of 500 hundred dollars the boys at the University granted him a nice little medical degree with practically no effort involved.
The now Dr Brinkley (much nicer ring to it don’t you think) went on to open his own practice in Arkanses where he practiced medicine for a number of years, servicing the local farming/meat packer community (who weren’t exactly the sharpest tools on the shelf). Regrettably, one of his patients who at the time was suffering from impotance, loss of libido and a general lack of energy suggested to the young, bright, broke and ever so ethically inclined doctor that perhaps the solution lies in implanting bull testicles in him (seeing as bulls were known for their erm ….. virile nature ….. damn rednecks always had skewed logic). The man even offered him 2500 dollars (the equivalent of 10 grand by today’s standards).
So having been offered the good chunk of change to essentially kill a person the good doctor performed his first surgery (ever) and inserted the bulls testicles into the man and low and behold 9 months later the man had his first child ( yes, it was all in his head and no the bulls testicles didn’t work). Now, Brinkely having been faced with such an excellent opportunity decided to take the money and hire an advertising company, get him self a spot on the radio (” The Doc Box” on KFKB (Kansas First, Kansas Best) and call himself a fertility specialist with “the only proven cure for impotence” (remember Viagra wasn’t around at the time)
Since then Brinkley went on to make over 12 million dollars over 15 years by performing his procedures on men, women and even children. The vast majority of the procedures when done in the back of his practice while he was drunk and many of his patients developed bleeding, infection and a good number (even by Kuwaiti healthcare standards) died and even those who survived only managed to keep they balls for a couple of months before their bodies reacted to them and destroyed them by inflammation.
A wedding photo from when he married his second wife (yes, he was still married
to his first one at the time…… like most sick fucks that bastard was polygamous*)
A regular person/doctor/false profit would have decided to call it quits after he’d killed a couple of people and many of us would probably admit that we were wrong, however the good doctor insisted that the procedure required a person of “intellegence” for the it to be a success and blamed his patients for his failures (sounds familiar to anyone?) and in the end it took the fine efforts of Morris Fishbein (executive secretary of the American Medical Association) to get Brinkleys licence revoked and even then the bastard tried to run for governor so that he can appoint an new board of directors for the American Medical Association and get his licence back.
Oh well, if it’s any consolation Brinkley died alone, penniless (thanks to the IRS) and with one leg chopped off ……. Yes, Karma is infact a bitch in stilletoes*.
*I can’t spell and wordpress’s spell checker is giving me hell ….. live with it …..
Fucked up Medical Facts
Here it goes:
- The brain has no pain receptors, when you have a headache it’s the changes in pressure inside the skull that you are feeling rather than “true” pain. (well at least that’s what I was taught in med school … I find it hard to believe TBH, a headache is a headache because there’s pain involved.)
- In addition to fingerprints we are also born with unique tongue prints (i.e. no two tongues are alike).
- Your feet produce about a pint of sweat per day; you filthy animal you ……
- Carbon monoxide poisoning takes about 15 minutes to kill you. This is because it has to bind to a fair share of your hemoglobin and has to get across the lungs to do it. Limited rates of movement (diffusion) across the lungs is where the bottle neck is at.
- Sleep deprivation will kill you in 10 days. Most people go into seizures by day 4 of complete sleep deprivation.
- At one point infecting a person with malaria was considered an option in the treatment/control of HIV.
- Contrary to popular belief our hair will grow after a course of chemo, it may just be a different color and texture.
- Apologies as there’s very little to write about these days
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