From:    Marilyn Burge
To:      Steve Bedard


On (12 Dec 93) Steve Bedard wrote to Marilyn Burge...

 SB> MB> It is every bit as normal as left-handedness, as both embrace
 SB> MB> about 10 percent of the population.
 SB>
 SB> What do you know about how they arrived at the 10% figure for
 SB> homosexuals?

 Kinsey Report.  They surveyed many people with graphic questions
 regarding their sexlives.

 A lot depends on your definition of "homosexual."  If you confine the
 term to those who are exclusively homosexual, the figure is lower.  If
 you consider anybody who has had a same-sex erotic experience to be
 homosexual, the figure is much higher than 10 percent.

 According to the Janus Report (copyright 1993), in response to the
 question "Have you had homosexual experiences," 22 percent of 1335 men
 said "yes," and 17 percent of 1384 women said "yes."  This varies from
 the Kinsey Report, which stated that 37 percent of the men and 19
 percent of the women had reported homosexual experiences that resulted
 in orgasm at some period in their lives.

 In the Janus Report in response to the question "Have you had
 homosexual experiences," the breakdown is as follows:

 n =                    Men = 294       Women = 235
 Once                   5 %             6 %
 Occasionally           56 %            67 %
 Frequently             13 %            6 %
 Ongoing                26 %            21 %

Avtive = lines c + d    39 %            27 %

 Self-identification:  sexual orientation:

N =                     Men = 1333      Women = 1411
Heterosexual            91 %            95 %
Homosexual               4 %             2 %
Bisexual                 5 %             3 %

If one counts both homosexuals and bisexuals as homosexuals (many
bisexuals identify closer with the gay community than they do with the
straight community), you get a total of 9 percent of the men identifying
themselves as being gay or liking both men and women, and 5 percent of
the women being either homosexual or liking both men and women.

Since handedness is also not an absolute, I posit that these percentages
compare fairly closely with the percentage of people who call themselves
left-handed.  According to the statistics I've seen, about 11 percent of
the population identifies themselves as left-handed, but most generally,
this identification is based on the hand with which they write, rather
than a composite of all the tasks that they perform.  Often people who
write left-handed do other things in a right-handed way (analogous to
bisexuality).  Ergo, I conclude that the percentage of genuine
homosexuals is roughly the same as the percentage of genuine left-handed
people.