I doubt there will ever be any kind of a national census on sexuality, but the typical statistic is that homosexuals comprise 10% of the population. That strikes me as about right for males. Almost all of the males I know or have interacted with, myself included, are attracted to women and not to men, at least not openly.
But for women, that statistic seems like a gross overestimate. Perhaps my own personal experience is limited, but my experience is that all young women are either bisexual or lesbian, or in a state of repeated shifts between the two. Older women in my experience are more likely to be heterosexual, especially if they are married and have children, but even then I’ve known some older married women who admit to sexual attractions to other women.
Am I wrong here? My perception is that heterosexual women are most definitely not a 90% majority, and among women my age (mid-20’s) and younger, they might not be a majority at all.
All young women are either bisexual or lesbian? I don’t think so…In my case, definitely not true. You’re going on personal experience. I could just as easily say that so far my experience has been that most women are straight because most of the ones I interact with happen to be heteresexual. It doesn’t make it any more true.
Most surveys that the percentage of gay men is something like 3 to 5%. The same surveys always seem to give the percentage of gay women at a percentage point or two lower.
Keep in mind that your definition of homosexuality determines the reading you’ll get. AFAIK, to be considered a homosexual in modern medical terms, one must prefer romantic relationships with members of the same sex over those with members of the opposite sex. So girls who’d be willing to experiment aren’t necessarily gay, just willing to experiment.
The one set of figures I’ve seen is that 3-5% of males are exclusively gay, with 10% identifying as “gay” and in general only or predominantly attracted to other men (Esprix’s admission that Jeri whatzerface – 7 of 9 – is the one woman that he finds sexually attractive should illustrate this point). I’ve never seen figures for bisexual men, but would guesstimate that they constitute another 10%, mostly closeted.
The interesting part to this whole thing is that the statistics seem to indicate that only half as many women identify as lesbian as men do as gay. And I don’t have a ghost of a clue how many are openly or secretly bisexual.
I suppose so. And maybe 10% is about right for women who are exclusively attracted to other women, either openly or secretly (but somehow I suspect the figure is much higher, especially counting the closet cases…)
But my experience is that all young women are, at the very least, willing to experiment or bi-curious; that much more than 10% of young women are openly lesbian or bisexual with a preference of women, and that many of the women who identify as heterosexual still have fantasies or sexual desires directed at women.
I guess I’m not asking so much for statistics as I’m asking for other people’s viewpoints and experience.
The problem of definition is a tricky one. A male’s assertion that he is “heterosexual” usually means he has not experimented in the past, he has no desire to experiment, and that he is not sexually attracted to other males. A female’s assertion that she is “heterosexual” is, on the other hand, a bit murky. It may mean that she currently does not pursue sexual relationships with women, but has in the past and may do so in the future. It may mean that she prefers men to women and is uncomfortable with the term “bisexual.” It may mean that she is physically attracted to men and women, but only wishes to pursue a long-term relationship with a man. It may mean that she has fantasies but is held back by fear of being judged. And so forth.
Homosexual behavior (not the same as being homosexual) is much more widely accepted in women than in men, so that’s gonna skew the results.
And why on earth don’t you want statistics? They’ll provide a much better answer than anyone’s experience, which is necessarily limited, both by the people they’ve met and faulty memories.
Didn’t Masters derive his 10% number from studying inmates? If so,wouldn’t that skew the percentage numbers? I’m just curious cause I’ve always heard that the percentage of homosexuals in the general population is only about 2 percent. Of course, that doesn’t count those who consider themselves heterosexuals who have had a few homosexual experiences.
Cat Patrol, you’re thinking of Kinsey if that’s the story you heard, not Masters. But in point of fact:
> Kinsey’s statistics are subject to skepticism because, as a natural scientist in the '50s, he did not apply appropriate sampling techniques of the sort any social scientist today would consider essential to an accurate result.
> However, his samples were, if somewhat slanted by working in a college community, fairly accurate, as has been proved out by people coming up with results in the same general range with accurately sampled populations.
> While Kinsey did, in fact, survey prison inmates, he did not do this until after the publication of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, from which the 10% figure is taken, and the results he found could almost be anticipated by any thoughtful individual: The 10% considering themselves as homosexual did not change; the percentage who considered themselves as “normal” (i.e., straight) but who availed themselves of gay sex in the womanless environment of a prison was significantly higher than in the outside world.
Female homosexual behavior is, by quite a good percentage of men, considered a turn on. So a woman who is concerned about other’s opinions can experiment and still think of herself as sexy/womanly/attractive/whatever. Also, girls and women are “allowed”, by our society, to be much more physically affectionate with each other. If we already hug and snuggle with our friends, a kiss isn’t that big a step.
On the other hand, it’s a rare man, even these days, who can hug his male friends, much less even consider kissing them. It just isn’t accepted behavior in the typical American male. I know that, among my own circle of female friends, guy-on-guy action just doesn’t hold the appeal that girl-on-girl does for the males. Now, whether that has more to do with women being different or just a reflection of social mores, I don’t know. But I do think that many more men than women are likely to deny any desire to experiment for fear of social reprisal.
The problem is that our individual viewpoints and experience may not be representative of what is real. If we were going by my personal experience then I’d have to say that homosexuals are nearly extinct. After all none of my friends are gay, none of my relatives are gay, and about the only gay people I come into contact with have been a handful of coworkers and fellow students.
I think we can all agree that my personal experiences certainly aren’t a good representative of the truth.
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You’re basing this off of personal experience. Did you ask a lot of males who went through puberty while attending a single sex boardings schools? It has been a number of years since I took Human Sexuality in college but the number of males who have had a homosexual experiment or thought would probably surprise you.
I consider myself a heterosexual. I’ve never experimented with homosexual activities, men don’t arouse me, and I don’t have any real desire to give homosexuality a try.
On the other hand I went to Disney in 2000 and saw Cirque du Soleil in Orlando. If I was going to cross the fence it would have to be that blonde guy that flew around the stage.
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Or it could mean that she’s not sexually attracted by women.
Human sexuality, heck human anything, has a lot of complex variables which makes it difficult to put everyone in the right box.
I have no doubts that there are plenty of people who engaged in some sort of homosexual activity (like Monopoly) at some point in their lives.
I still think the overwhelming majority of men and women prefer heterosexual sexual experiences.
This is strictly IMHO, but I have this idea that, in America at least, everybody, male and female alike, is heavily conditioned to think that sexy = female. Sexy men are a sideshow, an after thought, a token presence–single Ken dolls drowning in a sea of Barbies. In the face of that, it seems obvious to me that women would tend to react to sexy women on some level. I don’t think that heterosexuality is some incredibly powerful force that overpowers the fact of basic conditioning.
I am not trying to say that I think that sexual orientation itself is a matter of conditioning–I think that the evidence is overwhelming that sexual orientation is a complex, multi-faced thing. However, after being told my whole life by posters, calenders, commercials, movies, magazines, TV, and department store mannequins that a shapley woman strolling down a beach in a string bikini = sex, I don’t think it’s any wonder that when I see a (depiction, usually) of a shapley young woman in a string bikini strolling down the beach, I think of sex. Just because all that media pressure isn’t aimed at women per se dosen’t mean it has no impact.
Don’t little girls project themselves in the role of Barbie as they dress her up? I would imagine they want a sea of Barbie dolls because they enjoy dressing her up and doing things with her more then they would a Ken doll.
Of course at least Ken found himself a place with Barbie. In the 60’s they introduced a female GI Joe nurse that couldn’t find her place in a sea of Joes. The product was quickly discontinued.
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I would think that men react to sexy men on some level.
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There’s plenty of sex appeal aimed at teenage girls. In middle school my sister used to love picking up those teen magazines with pictures of the New Kids on the Block and whatever teen heart throb was en vogue at the time. There’s plenty of beefcake in the media though maybe not as much as there is of cheesecake.
Manda, I think you’ve hit something important here. The female form is used to market things to both men and women in a way that the male form usually is not. Some heterosexual men become uncomfortable when exposed to sexy or suggestive images of men, but this rarely applies to women/images of women because women are used to it. If we wanted to avoid sexy or suggestive images of women we’d have to go live in a cave. . .on Mars.
Now, to some extend women are meant to identify with these media images, or at least wish they could identify with them. But it’s not at all surprising that women should also come to identify with the male gaze. What other perspective has the media given us? This probably could not make a woman feel sexual attraction towards another woman if she were not already inclined to feel it, but it would be a rare woman who could keep herself from being affected by the ideas that attractive women = sexy and sexy women = good when they are so prevalent in the media.
