Kinsey's "10%"- wtf?

auspoz

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I'm no statistician, but I reckon there's more gay sex going on than only 10% of the population.*

Kinsey meant that 10% were exclusively gay. That's on his sliding scale theory.*

The inference I make is that only 10% are exclusively heterosexual. Or, putting it another way, 90% have various levels attractions to the same sex.*

Thoughts?*
 

DDre13

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Lol just look at my thread. I posted saying that supposedly from Kinsey 40% of guys have had gay sex, and the number is probably higher now.

The 10% only includes gay men, but what about all the straight men on Craigslist, at the bathhouses, bookstores, etc. I thinks that would make it only 10% NOT doing it!
 

Exbiker

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It's an interesting phenomenon that people worry about this sort of thing.

I don't think it's actually 10% of males who are ( mainly ) gay. I think it's probably about half that, in the developed world. But yes, there must be another 5% who are bi, 5% who occasionally have dabbled, etc.

But it doesn't matter. It's not like it's some kind of democracy thing. It doesn't matter if there are a hundred million men like me, or just a hundred. It is valid anyway, and I don't need to exaggerate the numbers to make it seem more like it's OK.

It's OK anyway, you know ?

People should come out though, when they feel comfortable. But that's to help make other gay people feel OK about it. It's not to "prove" anything, to the rest of the world. Many of whom actually don't really care much anyway. Anti-gay behaviour is almost a thing of the past in the US, western Europe, Australia, New Zealand etc. And South Africa has constitutional protection for gay people.Yes, there are still strands of it, as a vote later today in the UK House of Commons may indicate. And in other parts of the world, it's not so good yet. But progress takes time ...

:smile:
 
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brianmann

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TLDR: I've never agreed with the 10% number, I think closer to 2%

The thing to take away from Kinsey is the scale and not the 10% footnote. I identify as bi, I'm not open about it in most situations. From what I've seen the number of LGBT people is nowhere near 10%. Let alone exclusively gay being 10%. We talked about it in a few psych classes in college, and a point that came up was gay people tend to befriend gay people and so it seems like many people they know are gay and the number must be higher... Lastly, I'm guna source NPR (and I hate NPR). Google "LGBTs Are 10% Of US Population? Wrong, Says Demographer." They talk about the number being closer to 4%. Again, from what I've seen of the world I buy 1in25 being LGBT being closer to reality than 1in10 being exclusively gay. You can make stats say anything...and lots of people lie to others and themselves...so actually knowing this kinda thing is near impossible.
 

erratic

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There are major methodological isssues going on with all this research, Kinsey included. Self-identifying as gay means attaching yourself to a pile of culturally-based lebels that other people who only (or mostly) have sex with men may never identify with. This makes it functionally impossible to compare research about being gay with research about same-gender or same-sex sex or same gender desire or same-sex desire. This means you can't really compare Kinsey to research that asks for participants to declare their orientations. It also means that the latter type is culture-bound, as being gay in New York is not the same as being gay in Tokyo or Tehran.

Furthermore, when you ask people about sexual behaviour or orientation, you run up against participant biases that cannot be controlled for. Some won't report what they don't perceive as socially desired or approved. It's impossible to know how big this effect is.

What's clear is that there's way more gay sex going on than there are people who self-identify as gay to researchers. Attempts to explain that away without addressing the methodological problems with the research and the problematic and inconsistent operationalizations of "gay" and "gay sex" are missing the point.
 

Silvertip

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There are major methodological isssues going on ...

... the methodological problems with the research and the problematic and inconsistent operationalizations of "gay" and "gay sex" ...

My dear erratic, your sequipedalian efforts to impress us with your own erudition are falling on deaf ears for my part. While the term "methodology" is semantically correct in referring to the study of methods its use to mean nothing more than the two syllable word "method" is hackneyed at best and tritely pompous. Further, while "operationalize" is a perfectly legitimate word meaning to put into use, "operationlization" isn't a word at all and if it were it would mean nothing more than the one syllable noun "use".

Please spare us from any further polysyllabic pompousness.
 

Domisoldo

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It's an interesting phenomenon that people worry about this sort of thing.

I don't think it's actually 10% of males who are ( mainly ) gay. I think it's probably about half that, in the developed world. But yes, there must be another 5% who are bi, 5% who occasionally have dabbled, etc.

:smile:

I agree that 10% is probably too high but "gayness" is so hard to measure.

Yes, there is a spectrum and yes, some still decide not to act on their impulse. Does a man who has intercourse with women only but also fantasizes about sex with men in his dreams count as "gay"?

I get annoyed by some of my friends claiming that "everyone is gay" but turn yellow or purple whenever they see boobs or vaginas. They are allowed to be 100.00% gay but others are not allowed to be 100.00% straight.





 

Exbiker

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I agree that 10% is probably too high but "gayness" is so hard to measure.

Yes, there is a spectrum and yes, some still decide not to act on their impulse. Does a man who has intercourse with women only but also fantasizes about sex with men in his dreams count as "gay"?

I get annoyed by some of my friends claiming that "everyone is gay" but turn yellow or purple whenever they see boobs or vaginas. They are allowed to be 100.00% gay but others are not allowed to be 100.00% straight.




Agreed :smile:
 

Guill

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It's an interesting phenomenon that people worry about this sort of thing.

I don't think it's actually 10% of males who are ( mainly ) gay. I think it's probably about half that, in the developed world. But yes, there must be another 5% who are bi, 5% who occasionally have dabbled, etc.

But it doesn't matter. It's not like it's some kind of democracy thing. It doesn't matter if there are a hundred million men like me, or just a hundred. It is valid anyway, and I don't need to exaggerate the numbers to make it seem more like it's OK.

It's OK anyway, you know ?

People should come out though, when they feel comfortable. But that's to help make other gay people feel OK about it. It's not to "prove" anything, to the rest of the world. Many of whom actually don't really care much anyway. Anti-gay behaviour is almost a thing of the past in the US, western Europe, Australia, New Zealand etc. And South Africa has constitutional protection for gay people.Yes, there are still strands of it, as a vote later today in the UK House of Commons may indicate. And in other parts of the world, it's not so good yet. But progress takes time ...

:smile:


What this guy said. I don't think my comment adds anything constructive to the discussion but this post warrants a second read through.
 

fordonfire

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i also think 10% is a high estimate, perhaps closer to 5% or even less. but that's still quite a significant percentage of the population. of course, it depends on where you are, but even in san francisco it's only estimated that 15% of the population is LGBT. i recently moved to sacramento and even here there is quite a large LGBT population (who knew?)

The Seattle Times: 12.9% in Seattle are gay or bisexual, second only to S.F., study says
 

oddeyeblu

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Society advocates uptight and pure archetypes of male or female.
I think there definitely is a continuum between the two extremes. The actual numbers? Who knows they are in a constant state of flux.