Percentage of homosexuals in the world

[bulge]

So, you profess you must measure the pinguins in Congo. You must measure it where the desire can manifesst itself at its best, not into repressive society at large where you MUST abstain from measuring it. In society at large, numbers will always be false by definition.

 

[bulge]

http://www.justusboys.com/forum/showthread.php?t=283674

 

[SonOfSlobone]

The problem with this whole discussion is that "homosexual" is not a word with a scientifically agreed upon (that is, quantifiable) definition. Are you homosexual if:

1) In your entire lifetime, your sexual desires (not just acts) have been directed 100% to men and 0% to women?
2) How about 99.9% men, .1% women?
... [etc.]
n) 51% men, 49% women?

Everybody would agree that group 1 is homosexual. But there would never be any consensus on the other groups.

That's why researchers in the field usually don't ask men "are you homosexual"? Instead they ask things like "How many times have you had sex with a man in the last year?" and go on from there. There's even an abbreviation for this -- MSM -- men who have sex with men.

So ultimately the question is meaningless, because nobody's ever going to agree on what "homosexual" means.

EDIT: Just checked MSM in Wikipedia, they say the percentage of MSM in the US is 4%, according to the CDC, which uses that term when they do epidemiological studies on HIV. Not necessarily the exact number, but a reasonable starting point it seems to me.

 

[bulge]

Indeed, homosexual is an adjective you should never whatsoever use as a substantive.

The only thing that matters is M2M sexual desire, NOTHING ELSE.

Only stupid politicians ask for the number of "homosexuals" (voting cattle)

 

[SonOfSlobone]

^^^OK -- but people in this thread are asking for a specific number, and I don't see how you can get that unless you say exactly what you're looking for.

 

[bulge]

@ Hard-up1

I agree it isn't really meaningless

I have strong doubts about the experimental stage. Why should they experiment then? To get convinced later on by society they were str8 from the beginning? And theyabhor gay and men after the experimentation. Soundsreally silly.

Demographics only have a political value, nothing else. Only male to male desire matters

 

[trashkat]

I think it's incredibly difficult to measure -- mainly because sexual orientation really isn't a black and white thing. While the Kinsey Scale may be flawed, I think there's some truth to it.

So, do you count bi with a same-sex leaning?

Frankly, I think 10% though is probably pretty accurate.

 

[LT7PTLT7PT]

There's a spectrum, so solid statistics are anything but solid in cases like this. 10% gets tossed around a lot, but my gut says more around 15%.

 

[bulge]

Out-and-proud indeed unfortunately decreased M2M sexual activity as boys don't want the risk of having to question themselves about their sexual orientation. Before men were totally free without having to pose themselves any questions.

http://people.ucalgary.ca/~ptrembla...struction/a2-homosexuality-common-to-rare.htm

Prebirth or postbirth is totally irrelevant

Much published psychology on the transitory phase only proves the bad need to convince boys they only went through some mysterious transitional phase. Self-delusion is the main aim.

In the same vein you find more hits googling "situational homosexuality" than googling "situational heterosexuality". This is clearly not in keeping with reality as there are far more guys having M2M sexual desires married with a woman than there are inmates. Self-delusion once again.

 

[Ninja108]

The true number may never be known.

 

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

it is knowns

so all planet can relax ans get on with important thangs

dat nice

thnakyou

 

[SonOfSlobone]

I cannot cite the study, but I believe there may be one that reports that same-sex experimentation has actually decreased since the advent of out-and-proud homosexuality.

We speak from a perspective that is post-liberation, and unfortunately that means many gay men (and others) firmly believe sexual orientation is embedded and encoded from before birth. Having this sort of flat-Earth preconception prevents many gay men today from believing that there are adolescents actually trying to discover their own sexuality rather than just homing in on what is inevitably innate.

There is much published psychology on the transitory phase to which I referred.

There used to be something called "trade" or "strictly trade", or even "rough trade", which was guys who were willing to get a blowjob from a gay guy, or even fuck him, but wouldn't allow themselves to be penetrated, or God forbid, kissing or any of that sissy stuff. These guys invariably would have identified themselves as straight. (Incidentally, you sometimes see definitions of "trade" that imply that these guys were hustlers, but that wasn't really what the word meant.)

I think what happened, when gay men started to come out, straight guys backed off from activities like that because it would imply that they were gay themselves. So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if the number of guys in that category decreased.

 

[pocketpool]

I don't remember the exact data, but a sample of either 44 or 46 college students in two upper division psychology classes (roughly 50% male) had two reportedly gay men, same for women. I believe the mean age was around 21.5 yrs. School is in the mormon state so I'm sure that plays a role in response bias.

Introductory psychology classes tend to be representative of the larger school population (for this school), but it's unknown whether upper division psychology classes are still a representative sample. Sample size is also smaller than I would prefer, likely low in statistical significance.

Of course these results really cannot be generalized outside of the specific university, but they may give some rough idea as to the percentage of homosexuals in the university environment. Estimate? ~5-9%

 

[Nomenclature]

Polls are useless on this, because most gay people don't want to come out in an official capacity. If they can "pass" as straight, then they usually stay closeted in order to avoid discrimination.

 

[pocketpool]

Polls are useless on this, because most gay people don't want to come out in an official capacity. If they can "pass" as straight, then they usually stay closeted in order to avoid discrimination.

It's true that accurately assessing prevalence of homosexuality in the population would be difficult if relying on measures of self-report. However there are methods to help ensure more truthful responses to survey questions.

Of course there would still likely be problems with response bias, in other words a preponderance of one demographic to take your survey over another. The effect of this can also be reduced.

It appears to me that the best way to arrive at a good figure is through physiological measurement. Take a large sample of individuals, and show them homosexual and heterosexual images while measuring blood flow to their penises. I don't think many people would be excited to do it.

 

[evanrick]

i think every man is bisexual to an extent, so why bother trying to single out the ones who are leaning more towards men?

 

[RobinGoodfellow]

I hate backing this thought, but it's essentially correct, in the sense that every color has just a little purple in it (purple is made from red and blue, which you can use with green to create every color there is, and few colors are 0% red or blue). If you look at sexual behavior as a spectrum, then everyone is a little gay, even those that are basically 100% straight. Soooooooo: Sure, logically this works out, but it fallso down sorta in real life.

RG

 

[bulge]

Out and proud, the police, Aids, the new prudishness, internet,.............. would make Laud Humphreys 1960's work on tearooms totally impossible at present.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laud_Humphreys

Those tearooms have totally vanished while before any city with 1 000 000 inhabitants had at least 4 or 5 tearooms operating all day or at least at night. All men knew where to go for instant sex with other guys. At present even this has become problematic. This is a huge problem.

 

[ibill1]

if you ask me, the whole 10% thing is about how many openly gay people there are in society not how many gay people are out there in the world because that would be hard to measure. i believe that almost everybody on planet earth is bisexual to a certain degree. it's extremely RARE to find someone that is 100% straight or gay as in they've been that way all their life. it's that in the world we live in, it's taught that it's not okay to be gay so it's all taboo when it's natural as can be. i don't think that most people are 100 percent sure about their sexual orientation either. there are people that may be confident but the reality is that if a person says that they're 100% straight or 100% gay is lying their ass off. most people's insecurities pretty much make this impossible.

with that said, i think that bisexuality is the orientation of most people on planet earth but some people prefer the opposite sex more while others prefer the same sex more. that's what i think. straight and gay are not exact terms even though there are more people that may be straighter or gayer than others. it depends on the person.

Then you would be wrong. I am 100% gay and I am not lying my ass off. I suspect I have been around allot longer than you and am positive I have been this way all my life. This world may have taught you thats it's not okay to be gay but it did not teach me this. When I fell in love in the 70's at 17 it was the most wonderful and natural thing for me and my longtime husband. For some, gay and straight may not be exact terms but for me there is nothing that has been more exact, that, and the love and devotion of my man. You state insecurities make it impossible to be 100% gay or straight. Maybe yours do, I know mine don't.

 

[Inverted]

How can this be measured? The vast majority of homosexuals around the world lie.