TELEGRAPH.CO.UK - Sep 23 - Only 1% (240K) of the British population is gay according to a
report from the ONS. The gay ‘dating’ website Gaydar has 1.5M profiles
in the UK. Given that almost all its users are men, that means – if the
ONS figures are to be believed – that at ~1.25M heterosexual men in the
UK are registered on a site whose principal purpose is to hook men up
with each other for casual sex. Gaydar is entirely private and a bit
naughty, whereas the ONS figures come from a survey where people were
asked out of the blue to tell the government their sexuality. Whose
figures do you think are likely to be more accurate? FULL ARTICLE @ TELEGRAPH.CO.UK
There was a TIME magazine-commissioned study on sexuality that came out around 10-15 years ago or so (can't recall exactly when - does anyone know?). It was the most comprehensive study since McKinsey in the 40's & 50's. It found that the percentage of exclusively gay men and women in the general population in the US was around 1%, with a further 1-2% expressing (or had expressed at some point) feelings, and/or had participated in some form of sexual contact, towards their own gender.
Needless to say, this report didn't jive with the "accepted" figure of 10% (which itself was based on a completely non-statistical study using prisoners and hitch-hikers as subjects). So, the TIME study wasn't quoted widely and has largely been forgotten and/or ignored.
It's not surprising, therefore, that this ONS stufy found 1% (assuming the UK and US are similar in make-up). Perhaps it is twice that, but certainly not the bandied-about 10% figure.
Posted by: Sam Moorcroft, ChristianCafe.com | Sep 25, 2010 at 04:57 PM