That Craig is so versatile! When he’s not telling mathematicians and physicists how to do their jobs, he freelances as an expert in human psychology.

The punchline went something like ‘If there were saunas and woodland areas where women congregated for anonymous sex with men then their wives and girlfriends would have to nail their feet to the floor to stop them going there.’

There is a version of this promiscuity argument, utilised by right-wing Christians and conservatives in general, who object to all birth control and abortion for women for basically the same reasons.
That is that if you allow women to be able to have sex without the consequences of pregnancy then the mindless sluts will cause the downfall of society (of course they don’t say so in so many words).
There are so many assumptions being made such as homosexuality automatically causing greater promiscuity, that sex with strangers is bad, that open relationships are dangerous and unhealthy. That people never change during their lifetimes and eventually settle down and want something more stable. That if given the choice all people would prefer such ‘promiscuous’ relationship types over those that are more conventional.

Even if it could be shown that all these things negatively affected ‘traditional monogamy’ that would in itself not be an argument against them.
It just points out the presumption of these people that there is only one way to have a healthy society and that is where all people are in God-fearing, monogamous relationships that are the centre of a nuclear family.

It could possibly be a fact that a society that were more realistic about the needs and desires of people and didn’t seek to control behaviour through shame and coercion might evolve to be one that is more open and honest, with agents who are more responsible towards their own health and the health of their own sexual partners and life partners, whatever their sexual orientation.

It will be some job to untangle this web of assumptions and to tackle each propostion on its own merit.

I’ll echo Chris here and say it is great to have a blog that tackles these issues in this fashion. Well done.

In other words it may be the case that the gay way of life leads to an increase in promiscuity which in turn leads to an increase in the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases.  

I’m not sure there’s a “gay way of life” that is a direct result of the homosexuality itself. For instance, consider the differences between homosexual men and lesbian women, where in general terms the lifestyles and sexual habits are much different. I can’t quote statistics off the top of my head, but I’m pretty sure that lesbians engage in much less anonymous sex, having longer lasting monogamous relationships. The male sex-drive (whether hetero- or homosexual) is probably what accounts, in part, for these statistics in homosexual men.

Also, it’s inaccurate to say there’s a single gay way of life even among homosexual men. It’s fair to make some broad generalizations, perhaps, but this shouldn’t make us lose sight of important differences among sub-groups of gay men.

Perhaps I’m not getting this right, but here it goes:
Maybe the author is trying to point out that promiscuity (which can lead to an increase in the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases) is rampant amongst homosexuals and thus, the more gays there are the higher the risk of the spread and the fewer, the lower? In other words it may be the case that the gay way of life leads to an increase in promiscuity which in turn leads to an increase in the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases.
It would have been nice to know how many(the percentage) heterosexuals are in the same situation, though I doubt the percentage is this high (given that Schmidt’s data is accurate).