Althouse: A big new NIH survey finds only 1.6% of American adults say they are gay or lesbian.

July 22, 2014

A big new NIH survey finds only 1.6% of American adults say they are gay or lesbian.

And only 0.7% say bisexual.

Why are these numbers so low? Is it that people are hiding or in denial, or is the proportion of nonhetereosexuals really pretty much that low?

130 comments:

Michael said...: because nature; 7/22/14, 11:38 AM
campy said...: It's only surprising because absurdly inflated numbers circulated for such a long time.; 7/22/14, 11:40 AM
Bob Ellison said...: It's really that low.; 7/22/14, 11:42 AM
Chuck said...: The number is low only in relation to the longstanding currents in popular culture, wherein gay rights advocates have tried to push higher numbers of gays in the population to further their political aims. How many of us have heard the 6%, 10%, 16% numbers tossed around without much settled science to supprt them? It is similar to the efforts of gay rights advocates to "out" important (and long-dead) figures from history.; 7/22/14, 11:46 AM
YoungHegelian said...: Okay, so there's denial. Let's increase it by 100% & it becomes 3.2%. I'll give you either number as being legitimate. But, more than 100% denial? I doubt that very much.

In the popular consciousness, the numbers on the street are outrageous. I've heard 1 in 3! The Kinsey number of 1 out of 10 is thrown about even though it has long been discredited. Of course, it's important to inflate the numbers, because when you know just how small a group you're talking about, sustaining the meme of The Most Important Civil Rights Struggle Since The Blacks in the Sixties becomes all the more tendentious.; 7/22/14, 11:46 AM
bleh said...: I believe that number to be accurate. Non-heterosexuals just seem to be more numerous because they're so noticeable. For example, you might see thousands of people walking down the street in a given day, but no matter how modern and tolerant you, you'll almost certainly remember that one gay couple you saw holding hands. You might even be able to point them out in a lineup days later.; 7/22/14, 11:48 AM
jr565 said...: The number of gays has always been grossly overstated.; 7/22/14, 11:49 AM
jaed said...: Are the numbers "low"? Were you expecting that the numbers would be higher? If so, why?; 7/22/14, 11:49 AM
lgv said...: What difference, at this point, does it matter. We are all gay now. Whether it's 1.5 or 3.5 percent, it is still pretty low.

How about we just ignore all the LGBT+++ issues. I find it irritating that gay marriage is such a big issue and that people believe it is some sort of constitutional right. I also find it irritating that states are trying to define it in their constitution.

Just eliminate all the benefits (and penalties) of marriage.; 7/22/14, 11:51 AM
Gahrie said...: Why would people possibly hiding? It is a survey, so they are anonymous, and being gay or "transgendered" is a badge of honor today, with real social power.; 7/22/14, 11:55 AM
bleh said...: That said, I had usually ballparked it at 5%. I always thought some of the other higher estimates, based on Kinsey-type pseduoscience, were nonsense numbers designed to make gays seem like a larger, i.e., more politically significant, minority.

"Everyone has a gay uncle or cousin ..."; 7/22/14, 11:55 AM
Jane the Actuary said...: Why should these numbers be particularly high? I thought it was established a long time ago that the 10% figure was fictional.; 7/22/14, 11:56 AM
Original Mike said...: The 10%, or whatever ridiculous number activists have been claiming, was self-serving hockum.; 7/22/14, 11:57 AM
damikesc said...: It's always been that low. The studies claiming 10% were sketchy back in their day.; 7/22/14, 11:57 AM
Brando said...: That doesn't surprise me--I figured the gay population was about 2 or 3 percent. The higher estimates you sometimes see (closer to 10%) use wider criteria, such as including people who have admitted to having had gay or lesbian experiences. Those people fall closer on the continuum to homosexuality, but generally identify as straight.; 7/22/14, 11:58 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: I think a little low, but my understanding is that most empirical evidence seems to be about 2% or so. Not the 5%-10% that gay activists push. And, maybe the problem there is that gays tend to congregate, and so, living in a gay friendly community, like San Francisco, is somewhat akin, maybe, to living in NYC in terms of thinking that the Jewish population were a lot larger than it really is in this country.; 7/22/14, 12:02 PM
Anonymous said...: Somebody is going to have a 'talk' with those folks at NIH.

Look for those numbers to be revised way upward after 'careful reconsideration'.; 7/22/14, 12:03 PM
Unknown said...: Whether the percentage is 1.6% or 3% or 5% is not the important question. Why have issues that impact such a small percent of the population been allowed to hijack our social, political and religious dialogue, sucking the air out of other issues more important to a vast amount of people?; 7/22/14, 12:05 PM
Sigivald said...: Is it that people are hiding or in denial, or is the proportion of nonhetereosexuals really pretty much that low?

Mostly the latter, but not entirely.

All the decent estimates I've ever seen were in the 2-3% range; "10%" was never credible.; 7/22/14, 12:08 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Perception is not reality.

My feeling about gay marriage for the last few years has been that it's a tiny number of people. There are few homosexuals, and only a subset of them will ever want to get married (I suspect that it's less than half.) That's fewer than one million people in a country of 300 million. So, who cares?

It doesn't matter one way or the other, so err on the side of liberty.

The numbers were always there, and they've been ignored. When I quote low numbers like "under 2% of the population" no one believes me. That's the effect of saturation media coverage.; 7/22/14, 12:10 PM
traditionalguy said...: Being gay is certainly a minority status. But they are getting great PR these days.; 7/22/14, 12:11 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: I guess if someone wanted to- they could compare the number of gay vs straight marriage licenses issued in the next few years to see if a factual baseline can be established.

But I would not be surprised if they have made it a crime to even keep track of such things.

se it against the law to even count such things.; 7/22/14, 12:11 PM
Real American said...: you watch too much tv. gays are extremely over-represented on tv shows, particularly home improvement shows for some odd reason.; 7/22/14, 12:13 PM
Michael K said...: "Were you expecting that the numbers would be higher? If so, why?"

Because of her gay son. It really is that rare, except in prison where we see the behavioral changes that also occurred in classical Greece where women were unavailable. The Greek example is used ad nauseum to support the theory that homosexuality is common.

Gay men also tend to be better educated and more prosperous, probably due to the absence of family responsibilities.; 7/22/14, 12:13 PM
Henry said...: That's still a lot of people.; 7/22/14, 12:15 PM
Original Mike said...: Think about all the energy society has been forced to expend in support of the psyche of a sliver of the population. The word selfish comes to mind.; 7/22/14, 12:17 PM
Krumhorn said...: That's almost 5,000,000 people in this country. It feels like there are more because they tend to congregate in the Castro, West Hollywood and the Village. Oh...and hair salons.

In any other statistical model of science, it would be called aberrational. But, of course, in this context, that would be hateful.

For example, in astrophysics instrumentation, when classifying galaxy globular clusters using the Multi Layer Perceptron with the Quasi Newton learning rule, 98.3% accuracy is reported with 1.6% contamination.

- Krumhorn; 7/22/14, 12:22 PM
Renee said...: No matter how few or how many we should not discriminate unjustly against orientation.

Behavior, we can make distinctions objectively and justly though.; 7/22/14, 12:36 PM
RecChief said...: "or is the proportion of nonhetereosexuals really pretty much that low?"

And that number hasn't really changed over decades. pretty much static.

Nice to know that in a country of 320 million people, so much of our culture and public policy is driven by 5 million people.; 7/22/14, 12:36 PM
madAsHell said...: I think it depends upon where you live. I'm in Seattle, and I can't swing a dead cat without hitting a homosexual. Ten percent sounds feasible here.

...and yes, I have a gay cousin as well.; 7/22/14, 12:38 PM
mccullough said...: Maybe it's like the wealthiest 1% of Americans. They are a small percentage but receive prominence in the public consciousness.; 7/22/14, 12:40 PM
southcentralpa said...: They're really that low. Yes, your son is really that exceptional. Get used to it.; 7/22/14, 12:41 PM
TreeJoe said...: Walk through this with me...

1. The current trend is to believe homosexuality is a trait a person is born with - a genetic trait.

2. Historically, most homosexuals hid their sexuality and took part in a traditional family structure. They had kids.

3. We are about 1.5 generations into a surge in popularity in being openly gay - and a decline in homosexuals in traditional relationships having kids.

4. If #1 is true, and homosexuality was a trait carried on because of #2, then has the ability to be openly gay launched a downward spiral of future homosexuality?

This is a serious question - I wonder if we'll actually see homosexuality on the decline in the coming decades. If it's a genetic trait, nothing will decrease the trait's prevalence quite like no longer breeding.; 7/22/14, 12:41 PM
SJ said...: I have the impression that there is a higher percentage in Hollywood, both as actors and as employees in the TV/Movie production business.

Likewise for Broadway.

I also have the impression that the entertainment world has tried heavily, over the last two decades, to normalize homosexuality in TV/Movies.

The first researcher to study sex in the U.S. in the 1950s was Alfred Kinsey. (Kinsey had a doctorate in entomology, IIRC. I don't know if PhD programs in social sciences, or sexual-behaviour social sciences, existed at the time.)

Kinsey generated the 10%-of-Americans-are-gay claim. Critics long charged that Kinsey had a very non-representative sample group, including a large number of people who spent a long time in prison.

(Anecdotally, there is a lot of homosexual behavior in prison, even if the people involved did exhibit heterosexual behavior before entering prison.)

My memory is that no social researcher since has generated numbers above 5%, in answering questions like "Have you ever had a consensual sexual encounter with a member of the same sex?"

I seem to remember that most social researchers generated numbers in the 1%-to-3%-range for self-described homosexuals.

@Ann,

why do these numbers surprise you?; 7/22/14, 12:42 PM
Anonymous said...: The Mormon church has a longstanding issue with approximately 2% of their male missionaries returning home with a same sex attraction. Colloquially they are known as '2 Percenters'. This anecdotal evidence combined with the NIH survey leads me to conclude that the true percentage is somewhere between 1.5 and 2. No idea what percentage were born that way.; 7/22/14, 12:43 PM
tim in vermont said...: I wonder what the number will be in a couple of generations now that gays are no longer subject to pressure to procreate by the troglodyte right wing?

Where will the catamites come from?; 7/22/14, 12:43 PM
Smilin' Jack said...: A big new NIH survey finds only 1.6% of American adults say they are gay or lesbian.

Even so, we shouldn't just write them off while there's still hope of finding a cure.; 7/22/14, 12:45 PM
Unknown said...: Is it just me, or do I sense some real hostility towards gays, in the above posted comments, no matter what % of the population is gay or lesbian...; 7/22/14, 12:48 PM
RecChief said...: "Renee said...
No matter how few or how many we should not discriminate unjustly against orientation.

Behavior, we can make distinctions objectively and justly though."

Agreed. "You don't have to be straight to shoot straight."

But the agenda is not for acceptance and tolerance along with equal treatment. The agenda is to force heterosexuals to engage in exaltation and preferential treatment; 7/22/14, 12:55 PM
Original Mike said...: "No matter how few or how many we should not discriminate unjustly against orientation."

Agreed. Next we need to agree on what constitutes discrimination.; 7/22/14, 12:56 PM
sean said...: If I noted that Jews constitute about 2% of the American population, I wonder if Prof. Althouse would think that was low.; 7/22/14, 12:57 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: Whether the percentage is 1.6% or 3% or 5% is not the important question. Why have issues that impact such a small percent of the population been allowed to hijack our social, political and religious dialogue, sucking the air out of other issues more important to a vast amount of people?

One thing is that the currency today is certified victim status. And, by certifying gays as a victim classification, the Dems (realistically) hope to buy their votes, influence, and wealth. Not all that different from the bogus campus "rape" crisis we are now seeing so much hype for.

Why then are gays such an important Dem party constituency? Partly it is their money, and willingness to contribute it. But, I suspect that the big reason is their outsized power in the media, and, esp. on TV and in Hollywood. Just by watching TV, you would think that 20% or so of the population is gay. Why is this so prevalent, when so contrary to reality? My guess is that gay males tend to be more artistic in the ways that end up in Hollywood, on TV, etc. than their straight brethren. Instead of going into engineering and science, they often tend to go into art, drama, music, etc. And, being male, are often quite good. (Esp. since they typically have had no familial duties to interfere with their ability to concentrate fully on their chosen careers). And, it is their outsized representation in Hollywood, on TV, etc. that makes them so powerful as a constituency.; 7/22/14, 1:06 PM
Bob Ellison said...: Bruce Hayden, you make an interesting comparison between the gay population and the Jewish population.

How many (and what proportion of) French citizens would openly admit to being Jewish today?

How many in Egypt would admit to being Jewish?

How many in Iran would admit to being gay?; 7/22/14, 1:09 PM
n.n said...: Homosexuality is not a progressive condition. Therefore it can be reasonably tolerated. But there is no justification to selectively normalize the behavior.; 7/22/14, 1:10 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: Affluent white men have a disproportionately loud voice in the public discourse? No way!; 7/22/14, 1:11 PM
harrogate said...: Young Hegelian, you write:

"because when you know just how small a group you're talking about, sustaining the meme of The Most Important Civil Rights Struggle Since The Blacks in the Sixties becomes all the more tendentious."

I don't know the size of the group we are talking about but I disagree with the quote above. The importance of civil rights for individuals or any group of people does not to my mind hinge on how many belong to the group.; 7/22/14, 1:11 PM
exhelodrvr1 said...: I'll bet all of you are also Global Warming Deniers, aren't you?!; 7/22/14, 1:12 PM
Michael K said...: "No matter how few or how many we should not discriminate unjustly against orientation. "

No, we must discriminate in favor of orientation; 7/22/14, 1:12 PM
M said...: What's really selfish? It has been the majority population that has expended the energy blocking something that, in real world terms, has minimal impact on their daily lives. In contrast, civil marriage means has a much more profound impact on the lives of LGBT people than their psyches.

You can argue that you don't like the effects of gay marriage on the culture that surrounds you, but just because you degree with it doesn't mean that they are selfish for wanting the same rights you already have.; 7/22/14, 1:14 PM
Mike (MJB Wolf) said...: yeah it's that low. About the same as the number of "true believers" who think Obama isn't far enough left for them. But look at their outsized effect, having infiltrated journalism and academia and their related activisms to such an extent.

And, yes, that means we through out thousands of years of history with the institution of marriage because about 0.5% of our citizens might have wanted to get "married" and so needed the definition changed.; 7/22/14, 1:14 PM
Sam L. said...: Could be sample size, could be location of sampling, but I suspect it's really in that ballpark, and the activists have been inflating the estimates and the numbers. That would be to their advantage.; 7/22/14, 1:21 PM
Bob R said...: The number seems low because it makes sense for homosexuals to cluster. The numbers say gays and lesbians growing up in small towns are going to be pretty lonely - at least in terms of romantic companionship. Heck, HETEROsexuals leave small towns (at least temporarily) to find mates. It makes perfect sense for gays and lesbians from all over the country to migrate to big cities with a lot of potential mates, or at least people with similar experiences. So if you are in one of those cities (and the chattering classes are) your estimate of the size of the homosexual population will be skewed.; 7/22/14, 1:28 PM
pdug said...: is soliciting sex on craigslist an orientation? It seems to be. and also a small percentage one.; 7/22/14, 1:30 PM
Heyooyeh said...: I would like to see the percentage of millenials identifying as LGB. That's where the most accurate number would come from, I'd think.; 7/22/14, 1:34 PM
MaxedOutMama said...: I think that's about right, based on matching earlier results. Around 1% of the population is undecided, which includes those who just aren't interested, and probably spend their lives wondering why the rest of us are wasting so much time and energy.

People think the numbers should be higher if they are in an urban area, because let's face it, with a skew like that it's hard for those with same-sex orientations to stay in small towns. Having your choice of four people to date is not that much fun.

The outlier in this poll is that the bisexual population is so low. Maybe that's political now. It used to be in such surveys that more would identify as bisexual than homosexual.; 7/22/14, 1:36 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: Well from the love that dare not speak its name, they are now the proud and very, very loud bunch.

Small numbers; big mouths. Well aware of the dictum that it's the squeaky wheel that gets greased.; 7/22/14, 1:36 PM
Fritz said...: It's substantially higher in Hollywood, and they still can't find enough gay actors to fill all the parts that call for gay actors.; 7/22/14, 1:38 PM
campy said...: "Is it just me, or do I sense some real hostility towards gays, in the above posted comments, "

Specifics, please. Exactly what have commenters posted that you find "hostile"?; 7/22/14, 1:44 PM
Original Mike said...: "Is it just me, or do I sense some real hostility towards gays, in the above posted comments, no matter what % of the population is gay or lesbian..."

Maybe people are just tired of all the time and energy spent over 2% of the population.; 7/22/14, 1:46 PM
Revenant said...: I don't see any particular reason to think the numbers are inaccurate. Most studies place the percentage of gays in the population in the low single digits.; 7/22/14, 1:48 PM
FleetUSA said...: The perception problem is due to the MSM which pushes the gay, etc. agenda as well as the tendency for gays to proselytize (need to make a statement) more than the heterosexual community.; 7/22/14, 2:02 PM
Gahrie said...: Is it just me, or do I sense some real hostility towards gays, in the above posted comments

I have no hostility at all to gay people. I have tons of hostility for the gay rights movement.; 7/22/14, 2:02 PM
jr565 said...: M wrote:
What's really selfish? It has been the majority population that has expended the energy blocking something that, in real world terms, has minimal impact on their daily lives. In contrast, civil marriage means has a much more profound impact on the lives of LGBT people than their psyches.

Would you make the same argument about polygamy? Is it selfish of us to block it as a society? considering the impact on their lives and psyche to deny them marriage? It would technically have little impact on anyone's daily lives if they weren't in a polygamous relationship, right? But so what?; 7/22/14, 2:05 PM
John henry said...: Something that drive me nuts is people calling homosexuality "normal" regardless of the percentage.

Normal is an excellent word with a clear definition. You could look it up.

Homosexuality may be harmless, natural, innate and even good for you. It is not and never will be "normal".

Here is a normal distribution curve

http://www.regentsprep.org/Regents/math/algtrig/ATS2/NormalLesson.htm

Figure out where gays and lesbians would sit and then tell me that they are "normal"

John Henry; 7/22/14, 2:10 PM
Anonymous said...: Hiding? From homophobes, or from their partners who want to get married.; 7/22/14, 2:21 PM
CWJ said...: 1.6% seems high to me.; 7/22/14, 2:24 PM
Original Mike said...: "What's really selfish? It has been the majority population that has expended the energy blocking something that, in real world terms, has minimal impact on their daily lives."

No, the majority of the majority population doesn't give a flying fuck. We do care that there are real problems afflicting all of us.

"You can argue that you don't like the effects of gay marriage on the culture that surrounds you, ..."

But I don't argue that.; 7/22/14, 2:28 PM
Bruce Hayden said...: It's substantially higher in Hollywood, and they still can't find enough gay actors to fill all the parts that call for gay actors.

But, why then, all the parts calling for gay actors?

My guess is that that means that there are a disproportionate number of gay writers, producers, etc. But, the other problem with gay actors is that they have a hard time playing straight romantic leads. A known gay guy playing a straight romantic lead will just not sell. So, by coming out, they eliminate their marketability for a lot of roles. Much safer to pretend to be straight, even when convincingly playing gay roles. Everyone in Hollywood might know, but that is really irrelevant, when it they can provide plausible deniability. Those behind the camera, etc. are not so constrained.; 7/22/14, 2:29 PM
Sunslut7 said...: Why would any species have high numerical representation of homosexuals in its member-set make up? Doesn't homosexuality defeat the purpose of reproducing?

How many active homosexuals in the breeding ages are needed to keep a species from reproducing and therefore surviving as a species?; 7/22/14, 2:44 PM
Anonymous said...: Polls & surveys aren't accurate indicators of these kind of things. The old 10% number may be off, but anyone that knows, unbiased, a healthy cross section of American society will tell you that it's anywhere from 5 to 10%. That's just the way it is. I don't have a problem with it.; 7/22/14, 2:54 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: It sounds right to me. Think back to high school. About one in every two classes or so. Seems accurate.

I don't know what difference it makes...; 7/22/14, 2:56 PM
Lydia said...: A lot of people must be very surprised by the NIH finding -- remember when Gallup found that a quarter to a third of Americans thought that 25 to 30 percent were gay or lesbian? From The Atlantic in 2012 -- "Americans Have No Idea How Few Gay People There Are":

Surveys show a shockingly high fraction think a quarter of the country is gay or lesbian, when the reality is that it's probably less than 2 percent. ...

In surveys conducted in 2002 and 2011, pollsters at Gallup found that members of the American public massively overestimated how many people are gay or lesbian. In 2002, a quarter of those surveyed guessed upwards of a quarter of Americans were gay or lesbian (or "homosexual," the third option given). By 2011, that misperception had only grown, with more than a third of those surveyed now guessing that more than 25 percent of Americans are gay or lesbian. Women and young adults were most likely to provide high estimates, approximating that 30 percent of the population is gay. Overall, "U.S. adults, on average, estimate that 25 percent of Americans are gay or lesbian," Gallup found. Only 4 percent of all those surveyed in 2011 and about 8 percent of those surveyed in 2002 correctly guessed that fewer than 5 percent of Americans identify as gay or lesbian.; 7/22/14, 3:08 PM
Joe Schmoe said...: Why have issues that impact such a small percent of the population been allowed to hijack our social, political and religious dialogue, sucking the air out of other issues more important to a vast amount of people?

Because the Democrats love them some sweet, sweet campaign cash? I suspect the gay population is largely childless and probably pretty affluent. Stumping for gay marriage was good business for Dem candidates.; 7/22/14, 3:15 PM
Sharc said...: If it's really just 1.6% who are gay or lesbian, how much smaller is the percentage of those for whom homosexuality is an innate characteristic versus a cultural choice? That seems to be where most of the social angst started back in the day. I think most people recognize now that there is a nature/nurture split of some kind. Does that matter, especially in light of these very small numbers?; 7/22/14, 3:36 PM
Unknown said...: "No matter how few or how many we should not discriminate unjustly against orientation."

Are discouragement and discrimination synonymous? How about defining "unjustly"? Suppose the behavior of a few create problems for the many, would it therefore be "unjust" to discourage such behavior?

What is the incidence of lung cancer associated with smoking?
Illegal aliens?
Obesity?
Climate change?
What is the incidence of AIDS in MSM?; 7/22/14, 3:45 PM
Alexander said...: I for one find the following rules very selfish, given that only a small amount of people would do them and therefore the rest of us are just being assholes.

- Bans on polygamy and incest
- Whale hunting and Seal Clubbing
- Driving my car on the left-hand side of the road
- Lack of "Press 3 for Tolkien Elvish"

But if you really want to talk "selfish": According to plosone.org and a chart from the NIH (ie. my first google result), AIDS gets 25% of all NIH research funds.

So a disease that is easily avoidable if you're willing to abstain from sharing your drug needles and engaging in sex with gay men... is getting a quarter of the budget. Four times the funding of breast cancer, eight times the funding of prostate cancer.

That's why the number is so vastly inflated in the public realm. Because if the average man on the street came to grips with the fact that his entire society - traditions, history, mores - had to be torn apart at the roots because it didn't "fairly" accommodate 2% of the outliers - and "fairly" was defined as that segment of the population getting 1,250% of their share of medical funding (and I can't imagine how much more the proportion is in terms of health costs, given just how high the rate is for gays for depression, disease, attempted suicides, drug abuse...), then he would justifiably burn the whole rotten edifice down and hang every proponent of it by the nearest lamp post.

Especially when they got to the next part, where they demanded the right to tell his children how great the gay lifestyle is. Forget the morality of it for a moment - if the health effects of homosexuality were isolated, any action you did that led to them would be criminalized, and certainly, encouraging others (especially minors!) to indulge would have you shunned from society.

But yeah, it's 'unjustified' and 'selfish' to discriminate against it...; 7/22/14, 3:48 PM
furious_a said...: Wishing and wishing the numbers would have been higher doesn't make it so. Sadly.; 7/22/14, 4:04 PM
furious_a said...: The old 10% canard was derived from the Kinsey Report:

Two main problems cited were that significant portions of the samples come from prison populations and male prostitutes, and that people who volunteer to be interviewed about taboo subject are likely to suffer from the problem of self-selection.

Emphasis mine.; 7/22/14, 4:08 PM
furious_a said...: 10% canard is the gay urban legend equivalent of Domestic-Violence-during-the-Super-Bowl myth.; 7/22/14, 4:10 PM
David said...: Who the hell knows?

People are not always honest about sex. What s surprise.; 7/22/14, 4:10 PM
David said...: I note also that there are people who have sex with members of their own gender but do not see themselves as homosexual.

In short, you might get a better (or at least different) count if you asked persons about their experience with same gender sex, rather than their self-classification.; 7/22/14, 4:13 PM
David said...: "Nice to know that in a country of 320 million people, so much of our culture and public policy is driven by 5 million people."

There is something new about this? How may doctors are there? Lawyers? Petroleum executives? Members of teachers unions? Owners of sports franchises?

Small groups usually have a big impact if they organize and identify with the group.

Like white people in the South after the Civil War. Or abolitionists.

Deal with it.; 7/22/14, 4:18 PM
David said...: Freeman Hunt said...

I don't know what difference it makes...

Precisely.; 7/22/14, 4:20 PM
RecChief said...: "the other problem with gay actors is that they have a hard time playing straight romantic leads. A known gay guy playing a straight romantic lead will just not sell."

ever seen Neil Patrick Harris on "How I met your Mother"?

He's out, and very convincing as a hound.; 7/22/14, 4:22 PM
RecChief said...: "marcwinger.com said...
Polls & surveys aren't accurate indicators of these kind of things. The old 10% number may be off, but anyone that knows, unbiased, a healthy cross section of American society will tell you that it's anywhere from 5 to 10%"

I see, you must not believe in Global Warming then, huh?

Study after study, and the number is always less than 5%, but "everybody knows" it's about 10%. for the cherry on top, please tell me that you're from the science based community; 7/22/14, 4:24 PM
Roger Sweeny said...: John, If you're going to define "normal" as "what most people do," then heterosexual oral sex may well have been abnormal in 1950 but perfectly normal today.

"Normal" has a connotation of proper, "what it should be," like 98.6 is "normal body temperature." When it comes to sex, as long as it's voluntary, I prefer to use words like "common" or "prevalent."; 7/22/14, 4:30 PM
Charlie said...: The science is settled.; 7/22/14, 4:34 PM
Roger Sweeny said...: Bruce Hayden, Gay Neil Patrick Harris played very straight sex machine Barney Stinson on "How I Met Your Mother." It sold for nine seasons. Matt Bomer seems to be doing fine in "White Collar."; 7/22/14, 4:38 PM
Saint Croix said...: Kinsey got his 10% number based on responses from men in prison. He apparently assumed that being in prison would not change anybody's sexual behavior. Thus, 10% gay in prison means 10% gay out in the streets.; 7/22/14, 4:51 PM
Bart Hall (Kansas, USA) said...: These numbers match almost exactly those of a huge survey in Canada some years ago ... N>500,000.

It is clearly deviant behavior. Deviant, as in somewhere outside 2-sigma.; 7/22/14, 5:15 PM
James Pawlak said...: If even 1% of the population were carriers of typhoid (Think "typhoid Mary")or The Plague, what would our public health be? What should be our like policy as to AIDs/HIV (Or, such related diseases as TB) be?; 7/22/14, 5:25 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: I hope that's not skepticism, Professor. The science is settled. Don't you dare be a denier.; 7/22/14, 5:26 PM
Saint Croix said...: Why have issues that impact such a small percent of the population been allowed to hijack our social, political and religious dialogue, sucking the air out of other issues more important to a vast amount of people?

The media is dominated by liberals. They want to cast Republicans as haters. It fits squarely into their sexist, racist template. Sexist. Racist. Homophobe.

Identity politics utterly dominates the left. It's all they have, really. They've never been able to win on ideas. So it's ad hominem attack 24/7.

This is the same media that had a field day mocking Larry Craig for being gay. They had no sympathy at all for him. That was 2007, by the way.; 7/22/14, 5:29 PM
Known Unknown said...: "the other problem with gay actors is that they have a hard time playing straight romantic leads. A known gay guy playing a straight romantic lead will just not sell."

Rock Hudson fooled a lot of ladies for a very long time.; 7/22/14, 5:48 PM
The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...: "But if you really want to talk "selfish": According to plosone.org and a chart from the NIH (ie. my first google result), AIDS gets 25% of all NIH research funds.

So a disease that is easily avoidable if you're willing to abstain from sharing your drug needles and engaging in sex with gay men... is getting a quarter of the budget. Four times the funding of breast cancer, eight times the funding of prostate cancer."

Tell it to Africa. What may seem like over-generous AIDS research funding is, at least in part, an attempt to contain a contagion.; 7/22/14, 5:53 PM
tim in vermont said...: "Gay Neil Patrick Harris played very straight sex machine Barney Stinson on "How I Met Your Mother.""

I never liked that show because it always seemed to me that he didn't really like women. I don't mean their plumbing, I mean women. I had no idea he was gay until this year.; 7/22/14, 6:06 PM
MaxedOutMama said...: Heyooyeh - the study does indeed break down the population estimates by age. Here it is:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr077.pdf

The estimate for 18-44 is 1.9% gay or lesbian, with 1.1% being bisexual.

The estimate for 45-64 is very little different (1.8%) and this difference is within the bounds of the measurement error for both groups.

There is a difference in the bisexual count with 0.4% reporting themselves as bisexual. This makes sense - sexual behavior settles down and becomes more habitual in later years. Also less driven by lust.

In the 65 and over crowd, only 0.7% report themselves as gay or lesbian. Unfortunately, that may well be because of the havoc of the AIDS epidemic. Only 0.2% in that age bracket estimated themselves as being bisexual.

For hets, the percentages rise by age bracket, with 97.1% categorized as het for the 18-44 group, 97.8% categorized as het for the 45-64 groups, and 99.2% categorized as het among the over 65 crowd. This somewhat matches the declining bisexual numbers by age group, so I suspect that a decent number of bisexuals end up in the het group.; 7/22/14, 6:08 PM
Edmund said...: @Alexander According to plosone.org and a chart from the NIH (ie. my first google result), AIDS gets 25% of all NIH research funds.

NIH spends about $3 billion/year on all AIDS/HIV related R&D, out of an R&D budget of $20.5 billion. So it closer to 15% than 25%. However, the AIDS/HIV line item includes spending on related diseases, including TB and Hepatitis C. Both of those diseases are also spread by means other than unprotected sex. A family member of mine has HepC, which he probably got via a transfusion when he was a child, and there was no way to screen blood for HepC.

One potential justification for the level of funding is that HIV was a new type of disease, and studying it was going to take quite a while and consume a lot of resources. And at the time it first hit the US, the transmission methods were not well understood.; 7/22/14, 6:10 PM
David said...: Roger Sweeny said...
John, If you're going to define "normal" as "what most people do," then heterosexual oral sex may well have been abnormal in 1950 but perfectly normal today.

Don't be so sure. Other than the invention of electricity, these hasn't been much change in sex for millennia.; 7/22/14, 6:30 PM
David said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/22/14, 6:30 PM
William said...: According to Freud, there's a hint of mint in the affection a child feels toward his mother and the intensity of one's relationship with his best friend in high school. I've never had a homosexual experience or got it on with Mommy, nor had any conscious thoughts in that direction, but I'm sufficiently aware of the polymorphous perverse to deny such feelings exist. Perhaps our libidinal urges are ten percent perverse......It does seem that homophobic impulses peak in high school and youth. Not coincidentally those are the years you're most apt to be the recipient of a gay pass.......Everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity and respects, and that, of course, includes gays. I'm not against gay marriage, but there does seem something disproportionate about the throes we have put this country through for an issue that, in the fullness of time, will probably only matter to a few hundred thousand people.; 7/22/14, 6:50 PM
lemondog said...: Did the NIS inadvertently by-pass San Francisco?

I live in Center City Philadelphia where gays seem not shy about their sexuality.

On my block there are 37 single resident homes with 4 gay couples = 11.111%. Including the block around the corner, with it having more businesses than residential homes, there are another 4 gay couples.

I have no clue whether this area is typical or atypical.; 7/22/14, 6:51 PM
Rosalyn C. said...: Conformity seems to be a built in human trait. The Asch Experiment Hilarious! Or Is It? It's difficult to be seen as valid if you are different.

The founding principles of the US are based on individual rights, not on the size of your group to gain validity. Isn't that why the civil rights battles are based on individual cases and not class actions? The rights are inalienable human rights. 100% of gays and lesbians, bisexuals, etc. are humans and that's the important number. You don't have to conform in order to be equal. That's a remarkable concept.; 7/22/14, 7:14 PM
MikeMangum said...: Availability heuristic.; 7/22/14, 7:36 PM
Anonymous said...: Roger Sweeney: John, If you're going to define "normal" as "what most people do," then heterosexual oral sex may well have been abnormal in 1950 but perfectly normal today.

If so, then yes. I think John has demonstrated he knows what the word mean. I'm not seeing what your problem is here.

"Normal" has a connotation of proper, "what it should be," like 98.6 is "normal body temperature." When it comes to sex, as long as it's voluntary, I prefer to use words like "common" or "prevalent."

Yes, "normal" can have the connotation of "proper" in everyday loose speech, just as it has a definite (non-abstruse) technical meaning. Homosexuality is not normal in the latter sense, and some people think it is not normal in the former sense.

Literate people understand the two connotations and the distinction between them perfectly well, and know why they're useful, which is why they get annoyed with agenda-mongers who think they can produce "correct" attitudes by controlling and dumbing-down usage. (That usually just ends up with the new "approved" words taking over the negative connotations of the replaced words.)

Btw, what does that "voluntary", above, have to do with anything? Rape is often "common" and "prevalent", indeed the norm, under extreme conditions like war, or prison.; 7/22/14, 7:51 PM
jacksonjay said...: More to the point, what percent of the population is pedophile? And when will they become the next civil rights victims needing redress?; 7/22/14, 7:58 PM
Douglas B. Levene said...: The Wall St. Journal had a story today about a Hollywood gay rights group complaining that out of 102 films this year, only 17 featured gay characters. The NIH study suggests that gay characters are heavily over represented, not under represented. That is why this matters.; 7/22/14, 8:10 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @R Chatt,

The founding principles of the US are based on individual rights, not on the size of your group to gain validity. Isn't that why the civil rights battles are based on individual cases and not class actions? The rights are inalienable human rights. 100% of gays and lesbians, bisexuals, etc. are humans and that's the important number.

Did you just sit out the classes on Greek tragedy? Sometimes, your rights & their attendant duties collide with other folks' idea of what their rights & duties are. That's what makes the tragedy tragic.

Nowadays we see religious people claim their "rights" of freedom of conscience & association against the "rights" of the gay community to equality before the law.

It would seem to me that, when the government is called upon to balance competing claims to rights via the legislature & the courts, that the fact that the group that claims its right of conscience is many, many times larger than the group that makes a claim to equality before the law must be considered as a matter of importance in governance.

It can't be the only consideration, true, but that it shouldn't be a consideration at all shows just how blinkered the moral judgement of the SSM movement has become.; 7/22/14, 8:17 PM
SMSgt Mac said...: LOL! Actually the GREAT news here is that, as others have provided anecdotes on, is that the numbers seem to be invariant over time.
Anyone remember the 1994 book 'Sex in America' that reported the findings of the National Opinion Research Council? That was where NORC authors chickened out in the end and gamed the data summaries to hide the fact that homosexuals make up closer to 1% of the population instead of the 3% as offered in their 'findings'.

For those who might not remember or be familiar with the study, the normally respected and disciplined NORC tried to pawn off ‘3%’ to the population in “Sex in America: A Definitive Survey". They did it by drawing the circle around the definition of homosexuality in an extremely broad (ex: "have you you EVER...)context.
All NORC did was tick off those (primarily religious conservatives) who thought it should be less than 1% on the one hand, and the pro-homosexual activists that wanted it to be 10% or more on the other. I think the end result was that hardly anybody actually read the book or studied the data provided. I highly recommend it. Read it and see for yourself what YOU think the data indicates.

I actually see this a progress of sorts: One or more 'somebodies' at NIH had the integrity to not mess with the data. Good on them.; 7/22/14, 8:35 PM
Unknown said...: Pretty much in line with Kinsey's results fron 50-60 years ago.; 7/22/14, 9:05 PM
CWJ said...: SMSgt Mac,

NORC equals National Opinion Research Center, not Council.

Regardless, do you recall who authored the study? I may have known them.; 7/22/14, 9:05 PM
Revenant said...: Why have issues that impact such a small percent of the population been allowed to hijack our social, political and religious dialogue, sucking the air out of other issues more important to a vast amount of people?

Because social conservatives refuse to let it go, mostly.

It takes two sides to have a culture war.; 7/22/14, 9:12 PM
Original Mike said...: "NIH spends about $3 billion/year on all AIDS/HIV related R&D, out of an R&D budget of $20.5 billion. So it closer to 15% than 25%. However, the AIDS/HIV line item includes spending on related diseases, including TB and Hepatitis C..."

Wow. 15%. I'm still going with "selfish".; 7/22/14, 9:23 PM
Anonymous said...: The numbers are what they are, I've never expected the true proportion was above 3%.

The numbers only appear low because culturally, seemingly every TV show now has to have a gay character, the media always have stories about something concerning gay rights, there have been court cases, and we get the annual marches.

Experience should bear this out in settings with somewhat random distributions. The classroom isn't perfect, but the number given by NIH suggests that in a standard K-12 class, it's most likely that a gay person is the only such person in the classroom, and has very few gay peers in their graduating class (a class of 200 would be expected to have 4 or 5 gay/bi people).; 7/22/14, 9:31 PM
Jupiter said...: "I wonder if we'll actually see homosexuality on the decline in the coming decades. If it's a genetic trait, nothing will decrease the trait's prevalence quite like no longer breeding."

The theory, and some evidence, indicate that male homosexuality is the expression of a gene or genes which increase the reproductive success of females, more than they decreases the reproductive success of males. Which is saying a lot.; 7/22/14, 9:36 PM
SMSgt Mac said...: CWJ
You're right. I should have just pulled the book out of the case and dusted it off instead of going from memory on what 'NORC' stood for.
The authors of "Sex in America" were: Robert T. Michael, John H. Gagnon, Edward O. Laumann, and Gina Kolata.
I thought they did very well in showing how their study worked, and they get kudos for providing a copy in the appendices of the questionnaire they used. I keep the book in my small collection of books that provide all the data the reader would ever need on a topic, but which also turns out to be enough information to judge the authors' conclusions or premises as just plain 'wrong'.; 7/22/14, 10:20 PM
Revenant said...: Wow. 15%. I'm still going with "selfish".

Unless you're alleging that the NIH budget is controlled by a secret cabal of HIV+ individuals, I have to assume you're unclear on what the word "selfish" means.; 7/22/14, 10:37 PM
John henry said...: broomhandle said...

Tell it to Africa. What may seem like over-generous AIDS research funding is, at least in part, an attempt to contain a contagion.

Mre bullshit, though I do not blame you broomhandle. It is what we have been told for 25 years now. Heterosexual AIDS is a big problem in Africa and "any day now" it will make the leap to the US. Then it won't just be gay men and drug addicts who get AIDS.

Well, it has been 25 years now and if heterosexual AIDS was going to be a problem we would be seeing at least a teeny bit of evidence by now.

Fact is that most of what is called AIDS in Africa would not be called AIDS in the US, Europe or the est of the 1st and 2nd world.

Here AIDS depends on testing positive for HIV. HIV plus TB? It's AIDS. Negative for HIV but have TB? The disease still sucks but it is not AIDS.

Most so-called AIDS patients in Africa have never been tested for HIV due to costs, logistics and other problems.

AIDS in Africa mostly uses the Bangui diagnosis. Chronic diarrhea, weight loss, elevated temperature and a few other symptoms are sufficient.

These people are sick, I certainly don't question that. But there are hundreds of African diseases that cause these symptoms. Absent HIV testing, it is BS to call it AIDS.

AIDS is a politically attractive disease. The west will spend money to combat AIDS in Africa that they would not for, say, Dengue or Cholera.

So they call it AIDS.

John Henry; 7/22/14, 10:54 PM
Roy Lofquist said...: You don't like me because I'm gay!

Au contraire. I don't like you because you're an asshole.; 7/22/14, 11:03 PM
Unknown said...: Wow. This thread. Just Wow. You guys are really clueless, aren't you?; 7/22/14, 11:46 PM
Birkel said...: We beg for your enlightenment, Josef.; 7/23/14, 12:40 AM
Tarrou said...: Well, in my Psychology of Sexuality class some years back, the extremely (some might say obsessively) gay- and trans-friendly professor made the statement that no reliable study had ever found more than 5% of the general population to be gay/bi/trans cumulative. The numbers were always small for the people familiar with the actual science, as opposed to the "science". This doesn't mean that they don't have rights, but it does mean some of their more esoteric issues might not be so pressing.; 7/23/14, 6:31 AM
Misinforminimalism said...: Reading surveys like this is like reviewing NYC crime statistics after watching Law & Order reruns for 10 years.; 7/23/14, 7:59 AM
jono39 said...: It is not small or large. It is the number that is. The % of people who are biologically other == gay men, has always hovered in the 1% range. Now the numbers of men and women who have become gay for cultural reasons may have expanded the pool, the numbers of people who go both ways has always been culturally influenced. With respect to transgender and surgical resectioning -- it is simply mental illness that in our abandonment of self-respect we have given some license. When America reawakens, in the next decade there are going to be adjustments. Some of these will be violent. All will be painful. Many men do not seem to have a problem with women being bisexual. That is worthy of discussion.; 7/23/14, 8:29 AM
carrie said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 7/23/14, 9:23 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: "Is it that people are hiding or in denial, or is the proportion of nonhetereosexuals really pretty much that low?"

I've been telling you - directly - they were 2-3% for years.

But we do believe what we want to believe,...; 7/23/14, 10:47 AM
Cruising Troll said...: ooh, ooh, the numbers are low because of denial. AND the numbers are high because of the youngsters who claim they're gay because it gives them a hook to hang their awkwardness, disassociation, etc on.

Between the two, I'd say it's a wash.; 7/23/14, 12:21 PM
ken in tx said...: I agree with Freeman. My high school graduating class was 110 students. I knew one person and maybe one other who was possibly gay. Inflated numbers are bogus because of their concentration in show business and media.; 7/23/14, 5:53 PM
Static Ping said...: The thing about Kinsey is he never claimed the 10% number either. The 10% "had only homosexual experiences for any three-year period between ages sixteen and fifty-five." That would include prison inmates and the like (and perhaps the molested). His methodology was complete garbage too. The activists grabbed the bogus number because it suited their cause; the more there are, the more clout. It was a very effective lie. You still hear it from time to time from people who really should know better.

The numbers here are consistent with prior studies in multiple countries. Of course, according to Iran it is infinitely too high....; 7/23/14, 8:56 PM
Jane the Actuary said...: Hey, this post is quite old but here's a new twist: the Economist reports on a study that says that 17% of Iranian students identify themselves as homosexual.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21611117-official-report-blows-lid-secret-world-sex-throwing; 8/10/14, 4:46 PM