gays adult

The axiomatic approximation was, as point out, about 10%. However, this figure is based on the very discredited work of Kinsey. One cannot use samples in formulating an approximation in this case because it only yields confirmation bias. In simpler terms, only those who want to be tested (usually because they’re, themselves, uncertain) can be tested, which skews the figures considerably.

With no scientific basis, I offer 3% as my approximation for the homosexual/bisexual constituency in the general population. I think this is much more reasonable.


The first problem with statistics is that people lie.

The second problem is that sexuality is fluid. Some people have more feelings toward the other sex for a while, and then at another time they start having more feelings about their own sex. Women’s sexuality is supposedly even more fluid than men’s.

There is also the argument that "everybody" is bisexual. I’ll concede that probably many more people are bisexual than claim to be bisexual. However, imagine a man who is in a relationship with a woman and has sex with nobody else. He has had several sexual experiences with women, and fantasized about many more women. When he has a teenager twenty years ago, he had a few sexual experiences with male friends. He enjoyed the experiences with his male friends, but found more pleasure with women. He has had a few passing thoughts about sex with men over the years but they haven’t been very intense or common and he is extremely unlikely and probably unwilling to actually act on those feelings.

This man might be bisexual in a very technical sense, but I would put him in a separate category from men who have more or less equal feelings and experiences with both sexes. I’m not even sure how you could hunt down and count such men.

There are statistics out there, but I don’t know how meaningful or accurate they are.

This is funny because the same question, ‘where did 10% come from’, just came up in another forum, I will refrain from saying where. Did they just do a 20/20 on it or has the religious right come out with a new campain againt 10%?

The fact stems from the Kinsey Report, ‘Sexual Behavior in the Human Male’, 1948. However, Kinsey never made a claim that 10% are gay. And part of his early studies of Homosexuals has been discredited because Kinsey interviewed a group of gay men who lived within the same community -a gay ghetto. So his study didn’t represent society at large. Like I said, he never claimed a percentage, but people have extrapolated from his data.

The most enduring and shocking finding of his study was the Kinsey scale from 0-6. You might place yourself at 0 totally straight or 6 totally gay or anywhere in between. Bisexuality was a revolutionary discovery at that time.

"10%" seems to be an arbitrary number that was picked up by the Gay Rights Movement and was often accredited to Kinsey. I’m sorry I don’t know the origin of how that started. But it became a mantra of the Gay Rights Movement in the 70s. And it worked. The ironic consequence is that the right wing homophobes immediately began to challenge the percentage, saying that it was much smaller than 10%. The irony being that for the first time many of these organizations were admitting to the scientific fact that homosexuality exists as a fact of human nature rather than choice, because a specific percentage might be determined. We were no longer arguing if homosexuals existed, but how many of us are there.

The actual percentage is a moot point. Homosexual love is a difficult thing to determine against homosexual sex, and what have you. Kinsey viewed sexuality as constantly fluctuating, and he may be right in that regard.

I have read credible studies that asserted that 6-7% at the very least, is a constant in all cultures. But what is weird, is that whoever crunches the numbers, left or right, the percentages they come up with are consistent across all cultures. What that suggests is that homosexuality is inborn and not a choice. Well, that isn’t weird at all to me because I know homosexuality is not a choice and the psychologcal community agrees.

"10%" is a feel good concept. We are a percentage, does it really matter how much? We exist. That’s what 10% means. The exact amount is a difficult thing to argue for or against, and for the most part we come out ahead in that debate, if you will. So, "10%" can be held as a holy grail and a challenge.

Personally, I believe that 10% is accurate if maybe a bit low. Where there no social pressure, I believe many folks who identify as bisexual would admit they could only be fulfilled in a same sex relationship. But quibbling over the numbers of bi-sexuals or homosexuals is best left to the researchers.