And is there any significant difference between genders?
How do you tell? You have to define your categories. Self-reporting is not reliable. There is no magic lab test.
Beware, this is one of those areas where people throw around numbers they got from their Ouija board.
mks57 is right, but last time this was asked, I seem to remember there was a vague consensus that the number was about 10%. (No cite.)
Actually, I think the figure most typically quoted here is lower, around 3-5%. (If one defines homosexual men as those who engage in anal sex, we are constantly reminded that the figure would be much lower yet.)
Of course, the really intersting questions are whether the figure is uniform across different socio-economic groups in the US, and, lest I be accused of occidentocentrism, across all nations. If homosexuality were largely biological (genetic and gestational), one would expect the answer to be ‘yes’, ceteris paribus, i.e. leaving aside the ‘mechanical’ problems of self-reporting, self-selection, etc. in the sampling process.
Page 255-256, Deviant Behavior, Thio
A lot of it depends on what you define gay or bi as but there you go.
Why would anyone define homosexual men as men who engage in anal sex? That’s obviously wrong for two reasons.
And, of course, the problem is you can’t leave aside the problem of self-reporting and self-selection…which one would imagine would be the very thing that would vary from one socio-econmic or cultural group and another.
“However, he discovered that only 2.5% were ‘exclusively homosexual’ which is quite similar to the proportion of today’s Americans identifying themselves as gay or lesbian, even though the people in Kinsey’s survey were not a representative sample of the U.S. adult population.”
“Nonetheless, the real number of gays and lesbians must be higher than 2.5% because the homophobia in our society discourages identifying oneself as ‘homosexual’, particularly among young people with same-sex orientations.”
No ‘must’ about this at all, if, as the author asserts, that 2.5% figure was boosted by the fact that the survey was not representative.
I think this belongs in GD. Have emailed mods as such.
Different studies with different numbers is still factual. Until such time as people start arguing that one study is more correct than others, it still seems a factual representation even if necessitating a “but this may be off plus or minus depending on whether x is more likely or whether y is and what you make of that.”
Do any of these studies indicate the likelyhood of male homosexuality vs. female?
Unfortunately, I don’t think any studies done in this day or age will give a true percentage of the populace. As other posters have mentioned, the stigma of homosexuality that still exists will cause underreporting. At the University of Cincinnati, they do an anonymous survey of the students who take Human Sexuality and they found that 10% had engaged in homosexual activites. The 10% has been noted again in many other studies and it is estimated that 10% of the US population has had a same sex experience, if not more.
Studying our relatives in the animal kingdom might give us some clue as to ‘natural’ human sexual inclinations. Bonobos and Chimps are our two closest relatives. Bonobos are bisexual and about half of all sexual interaction is same sex with the females being especially interested in same sex activities. Chimps are less sexual than bonobos and white I don’t know the rate of female homosexuality I do know it has been observed and is practiced. Males engage in homosexual activies about 1/3rd of the time.
From an anthropological perspective, humans seem to be basically bisexual. There are individuals who have a strong preference to heterosexuality or homosexuality, but there have been too many widespread cultures were bisexuality was a norm for it to be merely sociological.
If a man kisses a woman on the cheek would that count as heterosexual activity? Likewise, if, as happens in some cultures, a man kisses another man on the mouth, would that count as homosexual activity?
Problems galore here…
This was the latest thread on the subject I think.
I’m moving this to Great Debates.
One of the more difficult questions to answer without getting derailed.
samclem GQ moderator
You can’t discount those that never engage in sexual activity of any kind and still identify as hetero or homosexual either. Sexuality is impossible to measure, and it doesn’t/shouldn’t matter anyway. It is but one aspect of a person’s being.
If we continue to make sexuality (for this discussion, who you do and how you do “it”) a determining factor in any matters related to civil rights, wouldn’t it follow that you could then make all aspects of the “mating dance” up for vote also? Soul kissers in this column, thin-lipped granny kissers over there. Caressers and fondlers at the front of the line, all of the Wam-Bam-Thank-you-Ma’am types to the rear. Lights-on couples get the good table at restaurants. Lights-off types will be seated near the kitchen. And don’t even get me started on the man-on-man ass-slapping out there. Can I now assume they’re gay as well? I mean, where do you draw the line?
I don’t give a good goddamn about what the bible says about sexuality (if, in fact, it says anything at all). There are too many aspects of it and too many shades within each aspect for a “rule” to be even remotely meaningful.
Here’s the one rule about sexuality that I’ve found useful throughout my life:
I don’t tell you what to do between the sheets, and you don’t tell me what to do. I think if we all follow that rule, I think we’ll get along just fine.
If you do some research, you will find that the religious right (and many conservatives in more general terms) is quite adamant about keeping the percentage as low as possible, so perhaps that definition has one of those groups as a source. While I don’t think it matters how few or how many people are gay, you’ll find them arguing the numbers down in just about any way they can (in fact, you can see the correlation in some threads here if you do some searching).
To be fair, many gay rights organizations seem to go in the opposite direction with the numbers.
The only reason for this I can come up with is that the conservatives want everyone to think that it’s a very rare thing, thus less “normal”, or that their proposals only affect a very few people. I doubt you’ll get them to admit that they are arguing it lower versus just “seeking the truth”, so you’ll not likely get an answer from them as to the “why” of the issue. The gay rights types want us to think just the opposite.
The actual number? Probably somewhere between the two. I still don’t think the actual number makes any difference, as our policies should be the same whether they comprise 50% or .0005% of the population.
Not to mention that sexual attraction is a range. Some people are purely heterosexual. Some are purely homosexual. Some have had a hetero or homosexual experience, but prefered the other side. Some don’t care what, as long as it’s sex. And some find one person of the ‘wrong’ sex really does it for them, despite being mostly hetero or homosexual.
If, for example, I found Johnny Depp incredibly sensual and if he hit on me would love a kiss from his lips… am I homosexual?
If I married a woman and had three children with her, but am truly more attracted to men, am I heterosexual?
If I had a fling one night with a woman in college, am I heterosexual?
If I had a fling one night with a man in college, am I homosexual?
Where do you draw what line?
Then my partner and I are just two heterosexual men who happen to have “non-homosexual” sex, exclusively with each other for almost 18 years.
The OP is asking about “gay or bi,” which means the entire population that is anything less than 100% straight. Which means everyone who has ever had any attraction whatsoever to a person of one’s own gender. I’d say that number is a whole lot larger than most people realize.
The Wikipedia has an article that looks at the question from various aspects – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orientation:
Roger, sexual orientation is not defined by behavior but by attraction. You never have to kiss a girl to be a heterosexual. The activity is completely beside the point. It’s hard to gauge a percentage of people with sexual attractions to those of their own sex (and not necessarily exlusive attarctions) because we have to rely so heavily on self-reporting and self-reporting is inherently unreliable. How many married guys are eager to admit they’ve ever jerked off thinking about a guy? How many have probably done it?
My guess is we’ll never have accurate numbers until nobody feels uptight about the results, in which case doing a careful survey will be about as interesting to the general populace as what brand of toothpaste redheads prefer.