Tag Archives | Homosexuality

Increases in Sex with Same-Sex Partners and Bisexual Identity Across Cohorts of Women (but Not Men)

Paula England, Emma Mishel, Mónica L. Caudillo

Sociological Science, November 7, 2016
DOI 10.15195/v3.a42

We use data from the 2002–2013 National Surveys of Family Growth to examine change across U.S. cohorts born between 1966 and 1995 in whether individuals have had sex with same-sex partners only, or with both men and women, and in whether they have a bisexual or gay identity. Adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, immigrant status, and mother’s education, we find increases across cohorts in the proportion of women who report a bisexual identity, who report ever having had sex with both sexes, or who report having had sex with women only. By contrast, we find no cohort trend for men; roughly 5 percent of men in every cohort have ever had sex with a man, and the proportion claiming a gay or bisexual attraction changed little. We speculate that this gender difference is rooted in a broader pattern of asymmetry in gender change in which departures from traditional gender norms are more acceptable for women than men.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Paula England: Department of Sociology, New York University
Email: Pengland@nyu.edu

Emma Mishel: Department of Sociology, New York University
Email: Emmamishel@nyu.edu

Mónica L. Caudillo: Department of Sociology, New York University
Email: Monica.Caudillo@nyu.edu

Acknowledgements: We are grateful to Gary Gates for helpful comments.

  • Citation: England, Paula, Emma Mishel, and Mónica L. Caudillo. 2016. “Increases in Sex with Same-Sex Partners and Bisexual Identity Across Cohorts of Women (but Not Men).” Sociological Science 3: 951-970.
  • Received: August 2, 2016
  • Accepted: September 25, 2016
  • Editors: Jesper Sørensen, Sarah Soule
  • DOI: 10.15195/v3.a42


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