# What percentage of the populace is gay or bi? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 20, 2005, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685 "2005-05-20T02:40:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![betenoir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/258eb7/32.png) [@betenoir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/betenoir)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/21 "2005-05-21T01:18:11Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > 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. Good point. Although you would think “Hey, we’re only dening human right to 2.5 millon people!” would be a pretty lame argument. Well, you would hope. Anyway, I can think of another reason it might be defined that way… the "ick"factor. Let’s all keep in mind just what disgusting things _they_ do in bed!!! Never mind that not all gay men do and that many hetrosexual couples do anyway (and obviously given the percentages, more hetrosexuals are doing it right now than homosexuals). But I’m not aware of a specific assertion, as far as numbers in population, that homosexual =anal sex. I was hoping roger could enlighten me. ---
**Author:** ![Lilairen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lilairen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lilairen)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/22 "2005-05-21T02:12:49Z")
> [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > **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. I know a woman who was a full adult before she realised her bisexuality because, as she put it, “Don’t all women like looking at pretty women? The women’s magazines are full of photos of them, after all. . . .” ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2005, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/23 "2005-05-21T06:42:27Z")
> [@kimera](#): > > 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. I don’t buy that as a defining feature for homosexuality at all - not unless you wish to compare the number of same-sex activities with the number of opposite-sex. Having one “homosexual experience” (and how is that defined precisely?) really seems to stretch the term for me because a lot of men will have one or two and not repeat them. > [@kimera](#): > > 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. I don’t think your comparisons with chimps and bonobos are relevant, because the sexual behavior of both species is obviously radically different from that of humans and each other - clearly sexual behavior is one of the ways in which apes are most different from one another. And I think your statement about anthropology is both unharmonious with what I’ve read about anthropology (most societies _do_ seem to have carefully prescribed sex roles, though they may be quite different from our own) and frankly an extravagant enough claim that I’d like to see you justify it more before I put any stock in it. > [@betenoir](#): > > Why would anyone define homosexual men as men who engage in anal sex? That’s obviously wrong for two reasons. I’m afraid you’ve run into a pet issue of _roger_’s. He was explaining to me in another thread that us queers are only in it for the buttlovin’. Perhaps not surprisingly the other queers agreed with me that this was a false and truly bizarre statement. I’m not sure why he likes to believe it, though it does bother me a little that he’s pushing it here in GD as though it were a commonly-held or plausible belief. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2005, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/24 "2005-05-23T06:03:02Z")
> [@betenoir](#): > > Anyway, I can think of another reason it might be defined that way… the "ick"factor. Let’s all keep in mind just what disgusting things _they_ do in bed!!! I was thinking about this the other day when some friends and I came across the terms “Dirty Sanchez”, “Donkey Punch” and “Cleveland Steamer”. No one is trying to curtail the civil rights of hets who engage in these sexual behaviors. And my “Ick-o-meter” was definitely off the charts when I saw the definitions of these terms. So why are gays singled out for comparatively less icky behavior (assuming we’re just talking anal sex)? Yes, I realize gays and straights can both engage in the above mentioned behaviors. I just don’t understand the Ick argument against homosexuality. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2005, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/25 "2005-05-23T07:31:48Z")
> [@](#): > > Let us consider the following data from a study of a representative sample of the U.S. adult population (Laumann et al. 1994; Michael et al., 1994) > > Persons with same-sex feeling: 6 percent of men; 4 percent of women > Persons who have ever engaged in same-sex behavior: 9 percent of men; 4 percent of women > Persons with gay or lesbian self-identification: 2.8 percent of men; 1.4 percent of women > > Most of these numbers fall significantly below the 10 percent that gay activists have long cited from Kinsey’s classic studies as the proportion of gays and lesbians. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Kinsey found that 10 percent of the U.S. adults were “predominantly” or “more or less exclusively homosexual.” However, he discovered that only 2.5% were “exclusively homosexual” which is quote 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 (Voeller, 1990; Kinsey et al., 1953, 1948). Nonetheless, the real number of gays and lesbians must be higher than 2.5% becuase the homophobia in our society discourages identifying oneself as “homosexual,” particularly among young people with same-sex orientations. If the survey is truly anonymous, then self-reported data would be about as good as you could get. Thus 2.8 percent of men; 1.4 percent of women seems to me the best estimate. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2005, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/26 "2005-05-23T10:29:13Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > If the survey is truly anonymous, then self-reported data would be about as good as you could get. Thus 2.8 percent of men; 1.4 percent of women seems to me the best estimate. We don’t have nearly enough info from that quote to make the call, and besides, “as good as you could get” is not a very positive take on accuracy confidence. The study used a 5 point scale, so what part of the scale is that 2.8 percent referring to? If we’re going to stick with people who are “exclusively” homo- or heterosexual, then I’d be surprised if the numbers added up to 90% total. Where do we put the other 10% or more, who can vary from “mostly heterosexual” to “mostly homosexual”, for instance? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2005, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/27 "2005-05-23T12:55:33Z")
I think that even in anonymous surveys, people will not necessarily be honest. Same-sex attractions are feelings that many people will deny even to themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2005, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/28 "2005-05-23T16:14:46Z")
If it is of any help, approximately 1 in 9 two-adult households in the 2000 census were same-sex couples. Though the stereotype is that gay men are less likely to pair bond than lesbians, just over half of the couples were male-male. > [@](#): > > Nationwide, 594,391 same-sex partner households represented 1% of all coupled households, according to the 2000 Census. Of these, 301,026 were male partners and 293,365 were female partners. [Cite](http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908878.html) [Cite 2 (the Census)](http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/censr-5.pdf) Considering that this recorded _only_ couples sharing households and not single people or gays living together as roommates, and that there could well have been many gay couples who chose _not_ self-identify on the census, it would imply that openly gay people are far more than 1.111…% of the population (which would put the number somewhere above 2.4 million adult Americans at a minimum). ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/29 "2005-05-23T16:58:54Z")
> [@](#): > > If it is of any help, approximately 1 in 9 two-adult households in the 2000 census were same-sex couples. One percent? Did anybody check the closets? Interesting developments today from the [American Psychiatric Association](http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/05/23/gay.marriage.ap/index.html). Probably deserves its own thread. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2005, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/30 "2005-05-23T18:09:25Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > If it is of any help, approximately 1 in 9 two-adult households in the 2000 census were same-sex couples. Though the stereotype is that gay men are less likely to pair bond than lesbians, just over half of the couples were male-male. I omitted a word that makes a lot of difference: it should have read \*approximately 1 in 9 **unmarried** two adult households" in the statistic above. Apologies. The 1.111…% figure is of _all_ households, however. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2005, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/31 "2005-05-23T18:22:00Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I omitted a word that makes a lot of difference: it should have read \*approximately 1 in 9 **unmarried** two adult households" in the statistic above. Apologies. BIG difference there. 😉 As gays in almost all of the US can’t legally marry, very few 2 adult households in the US will be 2 married gay people. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2005, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/32 "2005-05-23T19:33:36Z")
What of batching-it households? For a long while, I split an apartment with a friend. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/33 "2005-05-24T05:26:44Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > What of batching-it households? For a long while, I split an apartment with a friend. Nope, sorry, doesn’t count- there must be sex and it must have at least 8 witnesses for you to qualify (unless said couple is ugly, in which case their word will suffice). Actually, you answer on the form how many people live with you and their age/names. There is a series of boxes that asks > [@](#): > > How is this person related to you? > > \_roomer/boarder > \_housemate, roommate > \_unmarried partner > \_foster child > \_other non-relative So in the above situation you’d mark housemate/roommate. \_ ---
**Author:** ![kimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f0a364/32.png) [@kimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [May 24, 2005, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/34 "2005-05-24T06:35:30Z")
> [@Excalibre](#): > > I don’t buy that as a defining feature for homosexuality at all - not unless you wish to compare the number of same-sex activities with the number of opposite-sex. Having one “homosexual experience” (and how is that defined precisely?) really seems to stretch the term for me because a lot of men will have one or two and not repeat them. Oh, I didn’t mean for it to define homosexuals. Just note that 10% of the population has had homosexual experiences which at least implies that they are bisexual. I sold my Biology of Sex text book so I no longer have the exact definition of sexual behavior but it is defined as involving the genitals and contact with another individual. Same sex sexual activites involve things like oral sex, intercourse, and digital stimulation but not things like kissing since no genitals are involved. > [@](#): > > I don’t think your comparisons with chimps and bonobos are relevant, because the sexual behavior of both species is obviously radically different from that of humans and each other - clearly sexual behavior is one of the ways in which apes are most different from one another. But I do believe that human’s aren’t as different from them as we like to think. And besides, their homosexual activities prove that bisexuality is not unheard of in the animal kingdom. > [@](#): > > And I think your statement about anthropology is both unharmonious with what I’ve read about anthropology (most societies _do_ seem to have carefully prescribed sex roles, though they may be quite different from our own) and frankly an extravagant enough claim that I’d like to see you justify it more before I put any stock in it. All societies have sex roles but in a great deal of them, homosexuality was included in the sex roles. Some examples: China: [Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual Tradition in China](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0520078691/qid=1116915620/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-2117470-0253735?v=glance&s=books). You can read some sections from the book [here](http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/gaytexts.html). Other online sites [here](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-04/01/content_319807.htm) and [here.](http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Homosexuality-in-China) Japan:[Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0520209001/ref=pd_sim_b_3/102-2117470-0253735?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance). Online site [here](http://www.westernbuddhistreview.com/vol3/homosexuality.html). African: [Boy-Wives and Female-Husbands: Studies of African Homosexualities](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/031221216X/qid=1116916461/sr=8-3/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i3_xgl14/102-2117470-0253735?v=glance&s=books&n=507846). Online site [here](http://www.mask.org.za/SECTIONS/AfricaPerCountry/ABC/all%20africa/all%20africa_5.htm). Islamic:[Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0814774687/ref=pd_sim_b_1/102-2117470-0253735?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance) And of course, everyone knows about the bisexuality of ancient Greece and Rome. That’s just a small sampling. If you want, I can go into more detail about behaviors practiced in certain areas or give you more examples from many cultures. If you look on the amazon listing for each book, you will also see other books that examine this subject in more detail. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2005, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/35 "2005-05-25T23:43:28Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > 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. As a bisexual, I’d say that you are defining “bisexual” far too broadly. ---
**Author:** ![DMC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dmc/32/18049_2.png) [@DMC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMC)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2005, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685/36 "2005-05-26T02:32:59Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > As a bisexual, I’d say that you are defining “bisexual” far too broadly. I’d agree, but I think the people trotting out the 1-3% figures are defining it too narrowly. To me, someone could be considered bi when gender is not a major factor in deciding the sexual attractiveness of someone. I know some bisexuals where it’s a factor, as they seem to lean one way or the other more frequently, but it’s not at the top of their list. Basically, on a 6 point scale, they’d be the in the 3-4 range. I could be absolutely full of shit, as I’m one of those souls that is not at all sexually attracted to members of my own sex, so my observations are from a distance, but it certainly fits with what I’ve seen. I’m also pretty sure my personal sexuality isn’t represented by quite the overwhelming majority as some of my brethren believe it to be. If I were to find out that only a minority of the population was truly “straight”, as in no sexual attraction whatsoever with any member of the opposite sex ever, I’d not be surprised at all. There’s a **lot** of grey area between the two ends of the spectrum. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-percentage-of-the-populace-is-gay-or-bi/304685.md?page=1)