FAMILY RESEARCH REPORT	Journal of the Family Research Institute Founded 1982
Rapid Rise in Lesbianism?			Vol. 16 No. 2 Mar 2001

Homosexuality is more and more a part of our media, both as entertainment and as news. But does that greater public attention correspond to a growth in homosexual practice? A new, widely-publicized study by NORC [National Opinion Research Center] was cited by Reuters on March 15 as proving that lesbianism has increased 15 fold from 1988 to 1998. Has homosexuality finally started to grow rapidly, to ‘take off’ across society?

Some theorists, including members of FRI, oppose homosexuality in part because they believe that if homosexuality and heterosexuality were treated equally and children were socialized to believe that it was OK to ‘go either way,’ homosexuality would eventually ‘cannibalize exclusive heterosexuality’ and come to dominate sexual expression. Kinsey and others also felt that homosexuality would expand if ‘social heat’ were taken off it, and it was regarded as ‘just another form of sexual expression.’ But whether Kinsey felt homosexuality would grow to the point where it overtook heterosexuality is unclear.

Still others -- of the psychiatric and mental health movements -- say ‘homosexual activity is the result of a condition over which the individual has no or very limited control.’ Whether the condition is genetic (e.g., they are ‘born that way’) or due to processes in the womb or due to child rearing activities, there can only be so many homosexuals at any given time. And unless genetics, or childrearing practices change, the proportion of homosexuals will stay relatively constant.

Which of these views is correct? Is the rate of homosexuality up 15 times in women? If lesbianism has increased 15 fold in just 11 years -- to 2.8% of women -- and if the rate of increase stays the same, in just 11 more years about a third of American women will be lesbians. Is such a dramatic change realistically possible? Human societies usually change sexual customs very slowly, so how could this all be happening on our watch? If it is, homosexuality has only a little further to go before it swamps society.

In the late Roman Empire, Justinian (c. 527-565) decreed that “We admonish men to abstain from the aforesaid unlawful acts, that they may not lose their souls... so that the city and the state may not come to harm by reason of such wicked deeds.” Many Church fathers believed that homosexuality was not just a personal sin but threatened society, as exemplified by Sodom. This same idea was evident in Justinian’s decree, that homosexuality might expand and overtake society.

Changing Attitudes

Today, there is little doubt that attitudes toward homosexuality have changed, particularly over the past half century. One index of this change is the question that NORC has asked of a random sample of non-institutionalized people since 1973: “What about sexual relations between two adults of the same sex -- do you think it is always wrong, almost always wrong, wrong only sometimes, or not wrong at all?” The proportion of adults who answered always wrong was 70% in 1973, drifted up toward 76% in 1987, was 75% in 1988 and dropped fairly consistently from then to 55% -- its lowest point -- in 1998.

Figure 1. Percent Claiming Homosexual Experience from 1988 to 1998

As FRI has noted previously, women are more liberal on this item than men, and the highly educated more liberal still. In the 1990s, a large body of law was passed protecting homosexuals in various juridictions. As well, numerous companies have enacted ‘domestic partner’ benefits. And, of course, television and movies have made homosexuals heros in many settings, even while the mental health professions have celebrated them as a victimized class.

What Makes Homosexuals?

The same NORC database, as with the 1994 University of Chicago sexuality study, found that if men lived in a large city when they were aged 16, they were more apt to report homosexual encounters than if they lived in rural areas. A strong tendency in the same direction was found for women. This evidence weakens the ‘born that way’ argument, since it is difficult to see how genetics or childrearing practices would be so influenced simply by living in a ‘big city’ atmosphere.

On the other hand, an environment where homosexuality is protected by law and homosexuals are visible and often teaching, preaching, or otherwise in position to reach impressionable individuals -- particularly children -- lends credence to the notion that homosexuality might arise through recruitment or social influence.

Change in Prevalence?

It is difficult to prove whether or not homosexuality has increased. Until recently, well-designed research on the prevalence of homosexuality had not been conducted. Kinsey claimed that more than a third of all men had engaged in homosexuality, but his sample was heavy with prisoners -- and criminals are disproportionately homosexual, especially when they are in prison. In addition, his sampling was of volunteers, many from gay bars and other homosexual venues. So Kinsey’s population estimates had no real merit as far as establishing the prevalence of homosexuality.

Some reasonably good studies were reported in the 1970s, but they were far from definitive, putting the fraction of homosexuals in the adult population at somewhere around 4% -- a figure close to what open homosexual Magnus Hirschfeld reported for Germany before WWI.

In the late 1980s and 1990s, a number of fairly rigorous, nationwide studies indicated that perhaps 2-3% of men and 1-2% of women engaged in homosexuality in any given year. Thus the fraction of adults who participated in homosexuality from year to year was, according to these studies, under 3%. The latest NORC study reports that 4.1% of American men and 2.8% of American women engaged in homosexuality in 1998, putting the fraction of homosexuals in the U.S. at just under 4%. So is a sea-change underway?

Before leaping to conclusions, it should be noted that even the well-done research efforts had certain problems in common. All of them excluded prisoners and other people in institutions. Homosexuality is very frequent in institutions, so there are more individuals who engage in homosexual activity than would be indicated by surveys of those who are not incarcerated. Further, none of these surveys has been able to get more than 70% of its targeted sample to answer questions about their sexual activity. The ‘missing 30%’ could dramatically change prevalence estimates. What if, for instance, a higher proportion of those who refuse to be interviewed participate in homosexuality?

On the other hand, we know that the sexually venturesome -- including homosexuals -- are more apt to respond to sex surveys, so the actual proportion of homosexuals in the non-incarcerated adult population might actually be a bit less than the surveys report. This would be the case if the ‘missing 30%’ are much like the 70% who respond to sex surveys, but a tad more sexually conservative.

In any case, since homosexuality is more and more frequently being depicted as OK, even good, has this depiction resulted in an increase in the fraction of the populace engaging in homosexuality?

The new study suggests that the answer is “yes.”

As part of the NORC-conducted General Social Surveys in 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, and 1998, a national random sample of non-institutionalized adults aged 18+ was asked the question “have your sex partners in the last 12 months been ‘exclusively male,’ both ‘male and female’, or ‘exclusively female?’ The same question was also asked about each respondent’s past 5 years of sexual activity. Responses from a total of 5,063 men and 6,292 women aged 18-59 were examined, amounting to between 1,000 and 2,000 respondents in each survey. Overall, 154 (3.0%) of the men and 117 (1.9%) of the women said that they had engaged in homosexual activity.

For every measured year, a greater proportion of men than women reported engaging in homosexuality. This is a fairly consistent finding -- more men than women appear to engage in homosexuality. Although the finding that homosexuality has increased from 1988 to 1998 for both men and women is ‘statistically significant,’ it clearly is not true, as Reuters reported, that there has been a 15-fold increase in female homosexuality. Rather, there is decent evidence of an increase among women -- perhaps not quite a doubling -- between 1988 and 1998 (Figure 1). There is also evidence that homosexuality among men has somewhat more than doubled over the same time period. But for both sexes, there is a significant amount of fluctuation in the estimates from one year to the next.

The proportion of men reporting ‘no partners’ averaged about 10%, and for women about 12%. This too has been frequently found. That is, at just about every age, more men than women are having sex. And a good portion of this ‘extra sex’ is homosexual sex. There is no obvious difference between men and women in the proportions reporting exclusively heterosexual sex (Figure 2). If the sexes are combined, however, the proportion of those engaging in homosexual sex increased and the proportion of those engaging only in heterosexual sex decreased -- that is, heterosexuality seems to have been somewhat cannibalized by homosexuality.

Figure 2. Percent Claiming Only Heterosexual Experience from 1988 to 1998

Since the question about ‘sex partners in the last 5 years’ wasn’t added to the NORC schedule until 1991, we have only an 8 year span to examine. Even so, there is no evidence of a significant increase of homosexual involvement among men. While there are fluctuations up and down from year to year, the overall average of men who said that they had indulged in homosexuality over the last 5 years remained close to 4%. The ‘5 year’ proportion was always higher than the ‘one year’ proportion, but for men no significant change over time was indicated (Figure 1).

The story for women was different. As with the men, the ‘5 year’ proportion for women was always higher than the ‘one year’ proportion. But women went from 1% who reported having had homosexual sex in the past 5 years in 1991 to 3.3% in 1998. This finding was statistically significant, and broadly consonant with the notion that homosexuality among women increased. Also, among women, there was evidence that homosexuality increased at the expense of heterosexuality. But only by a factor of 3, not 15 as Reuters reported.

So the widely-touted ‘finding’ is much less dramatic than the news reports made it seem. The finding looks like it could be true -- that is, that the proportion of adults participating in homosexuality has increased -- but it is uncertain whether it has even doubled over the 11 years in this series of NORC studies.

One or two thousand people constitutes a large sample, but when we look at rare events such as homosexuality, there is generally too much sampling variation to ‘pin down’ an exact point estimate. Bottom line: it is not at all certain just what the amount of increase has been even if an actual increase has occurred.

During 1996 the U.S. government also did a sex survey. And in 1996, with a sample of over 12,000 aged 18-59 -- more than 5 times the size of the NORC study that year -- the U.S. government reported that 2.3% of men and 1.1% of women said that they had had a homosexual encounter in the past 12 months. Which estimates, the 3.7% for men and 2.6% for women in 1996 based on almost 2200 respondents in the NORC study, or the 2.3% and 1.1% from the U.S. government survey based on over 12,000 respondents, are more accurate?

Because their methods of gathering the information were very similar, FRI would tend to side with the larger U.S. government study, simply because its estimates should be associated with less sampling variation or sampling error. Similar reasoning would apply to 1992 University of Chicago study, where based on 3,400 respondents, Laumann, et al reported that 2.7% of men and 1.3% of women in their survey had had homosexual sex in the prior 12 months as compared to an average of 2.35% of men and 1.1% of women in the NORC surveys from 1991 and 1993. Laumann et al also asked about ‘sex partners in the past 5 years’ and reported (p. 311) that 4.1% of men and 2.2% of women said that they had engaged in homosexuality. For the NORC study, the corresponding average would be 3.15% of men and 1.75% of women.

The ‘good thing’ about the NORC surveys is that they were all done by the same team of investigators and were analyzed the same way. Unfortunately, there are fairly substantial discrepancies between the NORC estimates of the prevalence of homosexuality as compared to larger samples drawn at similar times by investigators not connected with NORC.

So while this new analysis of the NORC results tends to fit FRI’s theoretical model of how homosexuality operates, we believe that this study provides some evidence, but not compelling evidence, that there has been a recent uptick in homosexuality among women. The evidence regarding men is too uncertain to call.

References:
1. Butler, AC Trends in same-gender sexual partnering, 1988-1998. Journal of Sex Research 2001, 37, 33-343.
2. Laumann, E.O et al.The social organization of sexuality. Chicago: Univ Chicago Press, 1994.

Homosexuals are much more likely than heterosexuals to have sex with the underaged. Anyone who has studied this phenomenon with any objectivity has to acknowledge this fact. FRI has been noting this empirical reality since our inception, and began publishing scientific papers on the topic of child sexual molestation in 1985.1

While we have been roundly criticized by gay activists, our empirical findings have stood the test of time. Indeed, just last year in an article published by Blanchard, Barbareee, Bogaert, Dicky, Klassen, Kuban, and Zucker,2 the authors note that the “best epidemiological evidence indicates that only 2-4% of men attracted to adults prefer men…; in contrast, around 25-40% of men attracted to children prefer boys.... Thus the rate of homosexual attraction is 6-20 times higher among pedophiles” (p. 464).

Longtime readers of Family Research Report will recognize these figures as quite similar to those we have used since the early 1980s.

Another paper addressing the disproportionate rate of child sexual abuse among homosexuals was published by Freund and Watson in 1992. These authors3 noted the 1985 literature review by FRI, and agreed that the ratio of female to male pedophilic victims was about 2:1, even as the proportion of heterosexual to homosexual men is about 20:1. Freund and Watson did some ‘fancy figuring’ to arrive at an estimate that homosexual men are ‘only’ twice as apt to be pedophiles. They concluded that their findings generally support the notion that “a homosexual development notably often does not result in androphilia [sexual desire for men] but in homosexual pedophilia [desire for boys].... This, of course, should not be understood as saying that androphiles may have a greater propensity to offend against children than do gynephiles [men interested in sex with women],...” (p. 41)

How would Freund and Watson account for the fact that 23% of the 671 gays in the Bell and Weinberg 1970 study in San Francisco4 said that “half or less” of their partners “were 16 or younger when the respondent was 21 or older”? Does this not suggest that about a quarter of the gays in that study had engaged in pedophilia? Legally, the sexual activity these men admitted to met the California definition (circa 1970) of ‘illegal sexual contact with the underaged.’

Of course, some of the gays in the Bell and Weinberg study might have only had sex with those aged 16. The investigators did not ask how many had sex with boys aged 15 or less. But in the original Kinsey study,5 for adults aged 18 or older, 27% of male homosexuals admitted to sex with boys 15 or under. And somewhere around 14% had sex with boys aged 13 or less (p. 512) -- an age ‘protected by immaturity’ in almost all of the nations in the world6 today. 14% is approximately one of every seven gays!

Add in the fact that a disproportionate number of homosexuals have sex with animals (most studies have reported that bestiality is 4 to 6 times more frequent among homosexuals than among heterosexuals), and that homosexuals are more apt to engage in sadomasochism, and you get a picture of individuals who are more apt to sexualize their activities and those they encounter in life.

Like Freund and Watson before them, Blanchard, et al -- most of whom hail from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto -- go to great lengths to avoid linking homosexuality with disproportionate child molestation or any other dysfunctional behavior. Note how they end their article:

“Implications for Societal Attitudes: A few closing comments are necessary to preclude any misunderstanding or misuse of this study. First, the statistical association of homosexuality and pedophilia concerns development events in utero or in early childhood. Ordinary (teleiophilic) homosexual men are no more likely to molest boys than ordinary (teleiophilic) heterosexual men are to molest girls. Second, the causes of homosexuality are irrelevant to whether it should be considered a psychopathology. That question has already been decided in the negative, on the grounds that homosexuality does not inherently cause distress to the individual or any disability in functioning as a productive member of society (Friedman, 1988; Spitzer, 1981).” (p. 476)

What utter rubbish! Consider their claim that homosexuality “does not inherently cause distress to the individual.” Both of their scholarly citations are from the 1980s and thus ignore any of the relevant research of the last decade. In the 1990s, some large, relatively unbiased studies on non-volunteers were published. For instance, in 1994, the University of Chicago sex survey reported that homosexuals -- both men and women -- less frequently claimed to be happy when compared to heterosexuals and more frequently claimed to be unhappy. Also, every large, probability-based study on the issue published in the 1990s reported more frequent mental disturbance by homosexuals of both sexes, including the New Zealand Christchurch study, the NHANES study, and the large military twins-registry study.

This year, in the Archives of General Psychiatry, a large representative sample of Dutch individuals7 yielded the same finding, with gays twice and lesbians two or three times as apt to report one or more mental health disorders in either the past 12 months or during their lifetime. So even from the rather narrow perspective of “distress to the individual,” Blanchard, et al’s assertion appears to be quite false.

The same holds for their conclusion that homosexuals evidence no “disability in functioning as a productive member of society.” Where have these scholars been living? AIDS has devastated homosexual men, and disproportionately affected homosexual women. A host of self-inflicted problems (e.g., suicide, substance abuse), as well has high rates of physical disease, mental disturbance, murder, and accidents contribute to a sharply reduced lifespan. If a group of individuals dies at much younger ages, is disproportionately involved in substance abuse and the sexual corruption of youth, that group cannot contribute as much to society as those who live normal lifespans and do not endanger their neighbors with either their drug-use or their sexual fancies for their neighbors’ children.

References:
1. Cameron, P. Homosexual molestation of children: sexual interaction of teacher and pupil. Psychological Reports 1985;57:1227-1236.
2. Blanchard R, Barbaree HE, Bogaert AF, Dicky R, Klassen P, Kuban ME, Zucker KJ. Fraternal birth order and sexual orientation in pedophiles. Archives of Sexual Behavior 2000;29:463-478.
3. Freund K, Watson RJ. The proportions of heterosexual and homosexual pedophiles among sex offenders against children: an exploratory study. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 1992;18:34-43.
4. Bell AP, Weinberg MS. Homosexualities: a study of diversity among men and women. NY: Simon & Schuster, 1978.
5. Gebhard PH, Johnson AB. The Kinsey data: marginal tabulations of the 1938-1963 interviews conducted by the institute for sex research. Philadelphia: Saunders, 1979.
6. Graupner H. Sexual consent: the criminal law in Europe and overseas. Archives of Sexual Behavior 2000;29:415-461.
7. Sandfort TGM, Graaf R, Bijl RV, Schnabel P. Same-sex sexual behavior and psychiatric disorders. Archives of General Psychiatry 2001;58:85-91.

Corner

Child Abuse Hysteria

On February 27, The Wall Street Journal called for President Bush to rescind the various federal laws passed in 1974 relating to sexual abuse against children and collectively known as the Mondale Act. It pointed out that about $20 billion will be spent this year on programs like the National Center for the Prosecution of Child Abuse. With this money has come “the large cottage industry of child advocates, self-proclaimed experts in abuse, and of course the citizen hot lines, source of anonymous -- not to mention overwhelmingly false -- accusations of abuse.”

“With federal funding came also the seminars and conferences in which investigators, police and prosecutors absorbed all the lore soon on display in prosecutions all over the nation -- among them the false principle that children don’t lie about sex and the (now) notorious list of symptoms supposedly indicating that a child had been abused. That these -- fighting, separation anxiety, nightmares and the like -- were also likely symptoms of a thousand childhood upsets did not deter the experts who had developed these theories, not the prosecutors who presented them as revealed truth.”

Of especial interest was the “1997 study in the American Journal of Forensic Psychiatry” which cited a case “of instructors so zealous in their efforts to find abuse and so successful in eliciting accusations from children that the parents of more than half the children in the class were arrested.”

We have written against this wicked foolishness a number of times. Yes, children are sexually abused, but the feds should stay out of encouraging hyper-investigation of this crime. Too many innocent people are currently rotting in jail because of ‘child sexual abuse hysteria,’ and too many children are being hypersexualized in the name of ‘protecting them.’ I hope the new President takes the Journal’s advice.

Family Research Report critically examines empirical data on families, sexual social policy, AIDS, drug addiction, and homosexuality, digging behind the 'headlines' and breaking new scientific ground.

FRR is published 8 times/year by the Family Research Institute.

Dr. Paul Cameron, Publisher

Dr. Kirk Cameron, Editor

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