What?

I think the intention is that vegan isn't an attractive feature to anyone but other vegans.

Being a vegetarian has many benefits. But if your a vegetarian for many years there is many negatives as well. You can google all the pros and cons. If you eat meat only a few times a month you can get all the benefits with none of the negatives. Plus being a vegetarian is very painful during holidays when a lot of excellent meals have meat. Also studies have shown that plants suffer when we cut or pull them from ground so arguement that you don’t want to kill anything is not a valid reason to be a vegetarian.

Never heard that quote, but it makes sense now.

If one is concerned that "plants feel pain", that's actually the strongest reason to be vegan.  A cow might eat 500 times as many calories from plants as you would if you ate plants directly yourself.  The plants feel pain argument doesn't have much scientific support, though.  There's evidence that plants are reactive to some stimulus (their leaves can follow the sun for example), but no generally accepted evidence that they have brains or central nervous systems.

To your other point, there is lots of evidence that omnivores who only occasionally eat animal products do better than omnivores who eat animal products with each meal.

What health benefits to eating meat occasionally do you speak of?  When you look at independent peer reviewed research, the longest-living, healthiest, and most vibrant populations (especially in old age) are the most plant-based.  In the Adventist II studies (with hundreds of thousands of participants) they looked at healthy omnivores, vs. healthy vegetarians, vs. healthy vegans.  The Adventist studies are particularly interesting because the participants have a religious belief that they should treat their bodies well so most of them are physically active, don't smoke, don't eat junk food, etc.  Despite the fact that it is comparing only the healthy omnivores vs. the healthy vegans, the healthy vegans have significantly lower all-cause mortality than the healthy omnivores in the Adventist studies.  The vegans especially have lower rates of heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.  So, no, the preponderance of the best evidence doesn't appear to support the notion that eating meat even occasionally is healthier than not, or that there's any generally accepted long-term detriment to being fully plant-based.  And that makes sense  Quite the opposite, from what I can tell, when looking at independent peer-reviewed research (ie., not industry-funded research saying how awesome their particular industry is).

Given that the majority of veg-positive people in the western world are women (for example, in the U.S. women make up 59% of vegetarians and 79% of vegans), it sounds like if you're a hetero vegan guy you're actually at quite an advantage to adopt a veg-positive lifestyle.

In fact there are lots of memes about that in the vegan community (such as one where a girl asks Santa for a vegan boyfriend, and Santa offers a unicorn instead) since he can more readily find a unicorn.

There you go @NATO, a short and sweet post, just for you.

(Source, btw:  https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/why-79-percent-u-s-vegans-are-women.htm)

Veg-positive women are already dry. They don't need a veg-man for that.

Ah yes, the appeal to nature argument:  http://yourcybercourt.info/fallacies/list.html#sec-17

Lions also engage in polygamy, rape, and infanticide.  I wonder how far using Lions as a defence for those activities would go?  I don't find the "appeal to nature" fallacy particularly compelling, since the world's wild places are generally devoid of factory farms (which is where the majority of meat/dairy/eggs come from).

But we're straying into ethics, which isn't the topic, and I addressed it only because you brought it up.  Lions are carnivores, but humans are practicing omnivores that teeter closer to herbivores in most of our traits.  If the average person were dumped naked in the wild beside a tree with fruit on it, they'd probably eat the fruit rather than try to hunt/kill/eat an animal.  So it was for most of our evolution to date, and so it is that our biology is best suited for acquiring/eating/digesting plants.  And even healthy omnivores that exercise and avoid processed foods struggle to match the health statistics of the average vegan, and the health-focused vegans have everyone beat when it comes to longevity and vitality.  So if that's one's definition of "worth it" then it's worth it.

So after 40-some-odd pages of responses, I think the answer is that it's worth it (or not) depending on what your definition of "worth it" is.  If optimal health and vibrancy, especially in old age, is the goal then it's worth it.  If your definition of "worth it" differs, then so may your answer.

I've been vegetarian for about a year now. I shit better, like warm stick of butter.

Its been pretty easy once I got past the first few months and discovered new foods like canned beans. My only concern is potentially lacking nutrients found in meat.

Vegan is a bridge too far for me though.

You're in luck, every nutrient found in meat is also found in plant foods.  The animals get their nutrients from eating plants, after all (or eating animals that have eaten plants).  Ultimately all nutrients originate from things that grow in the ground.

I hear you on the digestion front.  The "shit better" factor is for reals.