Random thought

[pne]

I wonder whether there are more bi guys or girls? More gay men or lesbian women? Or whether it's about the same?

Comments

[ladyortyger.livejournal.com]

To me it seems that more girls are comfortable about revealing their bisexuality. it also seems that that's more socially acceptable right now than being a bisexual male.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I've certainly heard of more girls who say they're bi than I have guys... off the top of my head, I can't even remember reading about any guy who said he's bi.

it also seems that that's more socially acceptable right now than being a bisexual male.

That's the impression I have, too.

[marikochan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd agree with the other commenter that social acceptability affects the number of people who categorize/reveal themselves as bisexual (or gay/lesbian).

For some rough numbers, though, it might be worth taking a look at the Kinsey reports. They're getting on in years, but there's still some valuable information in there (and, as I recall, they're looking more at acts than self-classification).

[mendel.livejournal.com]

Which gets you the relative numbers of out bi or gay men or women, which is a very different statistic!

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

So far, the only truly rigourous scientific attempt to find out has been NORC's National Health and Social Life Survey (http://cloud9.norc.uchicago.edu/faqs/sex.htm). This stats collected are based on behaviour rather than self-identification; it's not clear to me from your question which basis you're using in your definition of sexual orientation.

[wingflutter.livejournal.com]

that's a very good question. very hard to find reliable statistics.

[rozallin.livejournal.com]

I believe that this is going to be discussed on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour tomorrow. There are apparently more bisexual women than men.

Matt says that statistically there are more gay men than lesbian women, although he can't cite a source.

[ladyortyger.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's a very good point.

[nyssa.livejournal.com]

There was a study done that I read about, maybe a year ago? They got a bunch of people and asked them to self-identify, then they attached little diodes all over their bodies and set them in front of porn of various sorts.

The girls got more aroused at the lesbian porn than guys did at the gay porn, leading the people doing the study to believe that girls are biologically wired to be at least a little bit bisexual.

It was an interesting study, but I just woke up so what I just said probably didn't make any sense.

[sparkofcreation.livejournal.com]

In general I believe more bi women than bi men and more gay men than lesbians, because [studies have shown, but don't ask for sources--I read it on the BBC's site though] women's sexuality tends to exist more along a scale and men's tends to be more either/or.

Definitely more bi women than men, I know that was shown for sure. Something like a quarter (a third?) of under-25 women self-identify as bi, and nearly all women have at least kissed another woman.

[leora.livejournal.com]

The answer is unknown. Here's my guess based on everything I know:

more gay men than gay women, but more bi women than bi men.

Here's what I base it on:
Women have been shown to generally have a more flexible sexuality. They are definitely less visual but also less physical... they care less about the physical characteristics of their mate(s). Also, personally, I know countless bi females and only a few bi males - and far more bi women who are closer to balanced bisexuality than males. Many of the bi females I know have a strong preference one way or the other such that they usually look gay or straight (depending on the friend in question) but will periodically do something that makes them seem bi or will state that they are bi. But many of the bi females I know are more balanced and will clearly do things with men and women and seem bi. Whereas all of the bi men I know are far further along toward gay or straight and will only very rarely seem bi - by self-report they find far more FOO attractive than BAR, but are attracted to a small percentage of BAR (where FOO and BAR are male and female depending on which way round it goes).

To explain more clearly, you get men who say things like: Well, in a room with 100 women about my age, I tend to find about 10 or 15 of them attractive, but maybe 1 or 2 men will seem attractive.

I don't know any balanced male bisexuals. But that's just my experience which is limited and biased. But combined with my understanding of human sexuality, I think it supports the conclusions I've drawn.

I also think studies that look at porn are massively flawed. They do not seem to account for personal taste in porn or that people's responses to porn aren't the same as their responses to actual sex acts. For example, someone might be turned on by a jail scene that they would hate in reality. And if a person is aroused looking at someone of the same sex, are they attracted to that person or imagining themselves in that person's sexy situation? I haven't seen any study where after reading the details of the procedure I haven't groaned and been able to state many factors they clearly have not accounted for.

We really need more and better research.