No, and I don't know. and not counting people who confuse secondary sex characteristics with actual attraction?
I think it's more than that. There will never be an accurate statistic though since there are so many closeted people among other things to that would yield inaccurate results.
This is a really interesting article I found on this subject (I originally read it in a different thread here) Larry Womack: Deep in the Heart of Texas (There Are Gay People, and They Are Looking at Porn) Ignore the URL, it's SFW.
It really depends on how you frame the question. Some surveys frame is was whether someone has had a same-sex experience in the past couple of years, and that number is probably 10%, maybe even higher. But if they asked people what their sexuality is and only counted the people who identify as gay/lesbian/bi/etc. (i.e. not just the people who tried it once), the number is probably lower than 10%, though don't have any hard numbers to back that up. If you want to try to frame the question as one of how many GLBT people are there in general and try to get a statistic that's independent of all the denial and closet-cases out there, that's probably impossible to estimate. But I think the people who ask about past sexual experience, instead of just asking, "You gay?", frame their questions the way they do to try to get an honest answer out of the people who don't know/acknowledge that they're gay/lesbian/bi/etc. Whether that actually leads to a more accurate statistic, I have no idea.
A recent (2008) survey of the UK by the Guardian found: 92% heterosexual 4% homosexual 2% bisexual 2% don't know Sex uncovered poll: Quantity and quality | Life and style | The Observer And I know this one is Wikipedia so usual provisos about reliability apply but it's referenced: Demographics of sexual orientation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I never in a million years thought that Ohio would be number six on that list.. Anyways.. I think that it will always be near impossible to get exact numbers. There are too many people that are still closeted or have not accepted themselves. There are also people that are scared to respond to that question.
Haha. The UK is the one place in the world where I'd expect 92% of the population to be bisexual. :lol::icon_bigg(!):eusa_danc
Well, I certainly hope it's AT LEAST 10%. Ideally, higher. But how can we ever really know for certain? Statistics are always just generalizations based on a subgroup of the population. Unless they obtain answers from every human being on this earth, they can't know the real percentage. And even if they have a survey for every person, they all have to answer honestly...which means it might have to be anonymous surveys. I'm definitely gay, and I've never been surveyed...so I'm one less tally mark in the gay column for these percentage generalizations. I wish we really knew how many of us there are though!
Doesn't feel like 10% . Using those statistics, my friends group should have 3 gay people including me. Doesn't seem to be the way. Would say it's closer to 5% personally, but like others have said, it's impossible to tell..
I really don't know how I feel about the 10% estimate that I hear all the time. I think sometimes that it might even be a little low because so many people are closeted, in denial, undecided, fluid or whatever. Also sometimes people choose to identify in ways that may or may not match up to survey instruments. It's a pretty well documented phenomenon that there are men who have sex with men and seriously define and think of themselves as straight because they are never the receptive partner in those interactions. Most other people would disagree however and say that would still constitute homosexual or bisexual behavior. That's just one example. For a lot of the reasons mentioned it may be nearly impossible to get accurate numbers so I just chalked it up the the unknowable and stopped worrying about it.
There's simply too many factors you would have to take into account in order to make it accurate: people in the closet, people who have no idea yet, people too young to legally take part in the survey that may be gay or bisexual, people who say they are but aren't really, people in denial, people who are homophobes (cos they're probably gay) and heaps more I can't think of right know. So I doubt that the 10% stat is accurate (but it's way more accurate than the 1% bull homophobes always claim).
From what I understood it to be from my sexuality class this summer: - in males, the homosexual population was around 4-7%, bisexual around 2-4%. That totals to somewhere around 10%. - in females, same idea, though bisexual %'s were higher and homosexuals were lower So for people who like the same gender, yeah, it's about 10%. Of course there's major biases and errors in the research done, as others have mentioned, but 10% is a reasonable number to accept.
I think that the 10% estimate is too low. Also, I agree with Calico 100%. Also,here is a link that mentions a few of polls that were done on the issue. Part of it reads:
There is a difference between having a same sex experience and having a significant enough interest in the same sex to be considered a queer minority. The majority of straight people are probably kinsey 1s that could try a few things out with a friend once or twice, just for the heck of it, if there were no consequences for it. If they do it once, decide they don't like it, and never do it again that's not gay. That's not even bi. That's just straight and open-minded, which you will see increasing numbers of in the coming decades.
