Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex

October 12th, 2010 by Christian Rudder

Gay issues have been in the news a lot lately, from the debate over same-sex marriage in Congress to a sickening rash of gay-bashing here in New York City. We see a lot of emotion out there, instead of information, and we wanted to provide some data-based context on sexuality so that people might make better choices about what they say, think, and do.

We run a massive dating site and therefore have unparalleled insight into sex and relationships. Here's what we've found, in numbers and charts.

First of all, gay sexuality is not a threat.

Gay people are not sexually interested in straights.

The subtext to a lot of homophobic thinking is the idea that gays will try to get straight people into bed at the first opportunity, or that gays are looking to "convert" straights. Freud called this concept schwanzangst; the U.S. Army calls it Don't Ask Don't Tell.

We combed through over 4 million match searches, and found virtually no evidence of it:

Match Search Returns
  • only 0.6% of gay men have ever searched for straight matches.
  • only 0.1% of lesbians have ever searched for straight matches.
  • only 0.13% of straight people's profile visitors are gay.
Furthermore
In our dataset, there was not a single gay user, male or female, who primarily searched for straight people.

Gay people aren't promiscuous.

Another common myth about gay people is that they sleep around, but the statistical reality is that gay people as a group aren't any more slutty than straights.

Median Reported Sex Partners
  • straight men: 6
  • gay men: 6
  • straight women: 6
  • gay women: 6

Here's how the distribution curves compare:

  • 45% of gay people have had 5 or fewer partners (vs. 44% for straights)
  • 98% of gay people have had 20 or fewer partners (vs. 99% for straights)

It turns out that a tiny fraction of gays have single-handedly two-handedly created the public image of gay sexual recklessness—in fact we found that just 2% of gay people have had 23% of the total reported gay sex, which is pretty crazy.

Straight people have gay sex, too.

Another inquiry that had unexpected results: we asked 252,900 straight people have you ever had a sexual encounter with someone of the same sex?

Almost a quarter answered 'yes'.

Click the airport-bathroom style icons to toggle the sex(es) displayed. Not unexpectedly, more women than men have had same-sex desires:

    straight women's same-sex desires:
  • 1 in 3 straight women has hooked up with another woman.
  • and of those who haven't, over 1 in 4 would like to.

As for straight men, a surprisingly high 13% have had a same-sex experience, and another 5% haven't yet but would like to.

Using the incredible power of computers, we were able to break down this question geographically. Here are straight people who either have had or would like to have a same-sex experience in the continental U.S. and lower Canada. You can see some sharp geographic divides.

Awesomely, the mountain West lives up to its Brokeback reputation, and Canada is orange nearly coast-to-coast. Even in the yellow and blue areas, you can see pockets of gay curiosity in interesting places: Austin, Madison, Asheville. Anywhere soy milk is served, basically.

Sidenote

Doing the research for this post, I came across many awful things our elected officials have said about gay people; here's a relatively calm example:

For starters, I found that a fun game to play with stuff like this is to replace the words "homosexual" and "gay" with "politician"—then you have something that's actually true.

I also spent a lot of time looking up match questions to debunk this particular claim. Down in the database I discovered one question with a surprising disparity, not between orientations, but between genders. Like Frodo to the Balrog, I wished I'd never unearthed it.

Come on, people. #facepalm.

Beyond Sex: Gay & Straight Personalities

More than just asking about specific desires and behaviors, our match questions are designed to tease out our users' underlying personalities. We've collected over 669 million answers from users so far. Below is a straight/gay comparison on 23 personality categories. You can mouse-over the ?s for each category to pop-up some examples of the many questions that affect it.

Two things: (1) The idea of the typical straight man as a kind bullying jock seems to be broadly true, though there is also a strong dork streak there, as well.

(2) Looking closely at the chart for females, we can improve upon Marx's famous dictum.

Religion is the opiate of the masses, so long as the masses are straight. However, amass a bunch of lesbians and you're going to need actual drugs.

In any event, a lot of these measured traits are reflected by the users' own words. Like we did before with race, we looked at the interests and tastes statistically unique to the different orientations, according to their personal profiles. We crunched millions of words of essay text and found the phrases most correlated to a particular sexual preference; again, these are the users' own words.

The Stuff Gay People Like

For both sexes, a lot of this stuff is way stereotypical. The size of the phrases indicate their relative popularity to the norm, and I actually had to shrink "The L Word" down to fit in our template. Meanwhile gay men's interests speak for themselves, evidently with an exaggerated lisp.

Compare those lists to their equally typical straight counterparts, below. It's like two zen koans, one by Meg Ryan, one by a viking:

The Stuff Straight People Like

As you can see, sexual orientation makes a huge difference in the words you choose to describe yourself. The small but enormous difference between lesbians' a girlfriend and straight women's my girlfriends says it all.

We extended this gay vs. straight analysis and for each orientation measured the frequencies of all one-, two-, and three-word phrases against the site-wide rates. Here's the breakdown:

There's no question that according to this analysis gay people are "different;" as you can see, gay interests and self-descriptions have little to do with the mainstream's. In fact what these numbers are saying is that the average gay person has only about 30% in common with the average American. But, ironically enough, when it comes to identity, it's hardly rare to be an outlier here. Adding an ethnic group to the plot helps put it in perspective:

Of course, as far as I know, no one's saying that Indians shouldn't get married or shouldn't be allowed to adopt children. The people of Louisiana even elected Bobby Jindal, an openly Indian man, as their governor!

We hope gay people can expect the same treatment very soon.

Adventurous

Would you consider trying food without being told what it is?

Would you consider permanently living in another country?

Would you ever get on a motorcycle?

Aggressive

Do you like to argue?

Have you ever yelled at the TV?

Do you go to great lengths to avoid conflict?

Ambitious

Would you be happy raising the kids while your spouse worked?

Which comes first for you, work or friends?

Do you want to be famous?

Artsy

Are you an aspiring actor/artist/writer or other creative type?

Do you like going to museums?

Do movies with subtitles bother you?

Compassionate

Is it your responsibility to help your fellow human beings?

Are you the type of person to tell a homeless person to get a job?

Do overweight people annoy you?

Competitive

Is it important to you to have the last word in an argument?

Do you like board games?

If someone wrongs you...do you eventually exact revenge?

Confident

Would you say you're smarter than average?

Are you okay with trying things that you're bad at?

Are you intimidated by a partner who is more sexually experienced than you?

Dorky

Do you think the International Space Station would be a cool place to get married?

Do you know what 'http' stands for?

Do you own any dice with more than six sides?

Generous

Do you give your best friend a birthday gift?

How much do you give each year to charity?

When you loan something small to a friend, do you really care if it gets returned?

Horny

How often do you think about sex?

How often do you masturbate?

Ideally, how many dates would you go on with someone before you have sex?

Into Drugs

What's your relationship to marijuana?

Do you think drug use with your partner can be a romantic activity?

Have you tried hard drugs, like, anything you need to 'cook'?

Into Sports

Do you play actual sports?

Do you enjoy exercise?

Do you have a favorite sports team, that you really like to follow?

Introverted

Does the idea of staying in and reading a book on a Friday night appeal to you?

Do you need "alone time" to re-charge after social situations?

At parties, do you go up and talk to people?

Kinky

Does group sex sound like a great idea?

Do you like sex toys?

Have you ever used nipple clamps?

Literary

Can you name an author from each continent (besides Antarctica)?

In high school, did you read books that weren't assigned in class?

Do spelling mistakes annoy you?

Optimistic

Do things generally turn out for the best?

Can just one person significantly change the world?

Do you think happiness is possible for all people?

Polite

Do you say something like 'bless you' when a stranger sneezes?

Do you hold the door for people?

Are you frequently under-dressed for special occasions?

Political

Have you ever marched in a protest?

Is it a person's civic duty to vote?

Do you know who your state's Senators are?

Romantic

Have you been around candlelight recently?

Do you like costume dramas?

Do you like to say 'I love you'?

Religious

Do you believe in the power of prayer?

Is there a God?

Do you believe in miracles? You sexy thing?

Spontaneous

Do you bring an umbrella if it looks like rain?

Do you often find yourself bored in relationships after a few months?

Have you ever had a one-night stand?

Trusting

Do you think most people give to charity?

Do you ever leave your drink unattended at a bar?

Do you think a straight man and a straight woman can truly just be friends?

Violent

Would you find it easier to kill for your beliefs or to die for them?

Have you ever thrown an object in anger during an argument?

Do you own a gun?

702 Responses to “Gay Sex vs. Straight Sex”

  1. Rich says:

    I’m sorry, but none of this is valid. OKCupid users, regardless of sexual orientation, represent a specific subset of the population. Plenty of groups simply are not represented here. For example, extremely promiscuous gays are not likely to need a dating site. Much like extremely promiscuous girls, they can pretty much pick someone up at a bar whenever they want. They’re not going to bother with a dating site until they are looking for something more. Ergo it’s not valid to assume that OKCupid users are a valid representation of the overall population.

  2. Tawnos says:

    Why does “Do you own a gun” indicate violence or a violent personality?

  3. Jenn says:

    @Polly: you might be surprised to know that most people don’t ever reach 10 sexual partners in their whole lives. Ask around (not your friends, of course).

    It’s funny to see all the gay haters coming out “we don’t care about this crap”, “where are these numbers coming from”, “that’s not right, maybe…”. lol.

    300 partners/year average, really? That’s not phisically feasible for a human. Trash your tinfoil hat.

  4. Shane says:

    Any way this map could be weighted by population?

  5. Meredith says:

    @ Josh. ALL men lie about their number of sexual partners, please.

    I would agree that the users of an online dating service are unlikely to be generalizable to gay (or straight) people as a whole. People who are looking for a long-term relationship are less likely to be having anonymous sex on a regular basis and those who ARE having anonymous sex are less likely to be searching an online dating site for someone to marry. So, it might be more fair to say that, while this group may not be broadly representative of people overall, the 2 groups (gay and straight) are likely fairly equally matched with one another in other aspects.

  6. Henrik says:

    re: KB’s comment (on October 12, 2010 at 4:40 pm)

    Thanks for the hearty laugh, KB. I have a gay brother, and if he was getting lucky 300 times a year, I think my brothers and I would be hearing about it nonstop. And 1-2% of the population? Gimme a break. I’ll admit, we’re a Nordic-American family and that gives me a slightly different perspective, but still, isn’t your point-of-view a little…um…insane? You should stop making assertions and, instead, make actual arguments with supporting evidence, but don’t you have a flaming cross to be leaving in someone’s yard?

  7. Zoe says:

    I knew it! I’m a female faggot! :D

  8. MrMisanthrope says:

    I highly dispute these findings based on the source.

    OKCupid is a dating site. Generally speaking, the extremely promiscuous people out at night clubs bringing someone new home every night aren’t much going to need the use of a dating site. The sampling is limited to people who use internet dating sites, or at least like online quizzes. That already skews the results quite a bit.

    I also take issue with the notion these statistics seem to suggest, which more or less comes out as “straight women are dumber and less interesting than any other group”.

    On top of that I take issue with the quoting of one Republican politician, when it’s conveniently left out that Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hilary Clinton are all against gay marriage. Can’t even give the illusion of bi-partisanship?

    It’s also somewhat asinine to claim a lack of equality over gay marriage. The mere existence of Civil Unions destroy any argument for redefining marriage. I understand arguing to afford more rights through Civil Unions, but there’s no reason to do what is essentially redefining dog and cat as the same animal to give 5% of the population rights they technically already have, and don’t really want.

    Additionally, the slippery slope argument has been validated in Canada where they’re now being forced to honor Muslim polygamist marriages on the grounds that they too are consenting adults.

  9. Sue says:

    @ David:

    Your question about lesbians, toys, and hating that part of male anatomy is based on a false premise. For some lesbians it’s true they think the idea of sex with men is gross. But I think for most lesbians the issue is much larger than that. They just aren’t attracted to everything else that is connected to the male anatomy. It’s men as a whole person that lesbians aren’t attracted to, and women as a whole person they are. So sex toys are just that, toys for having fun, regardless of what they look like or represent. Because they aren’t being used with a man.

  10. Tam says:

    I love the fact that you are supporting same-sex marriage. This article puts a whole new perspective on homosexuality. My best friend (and my child’s Godfather) is gay!

    I hope this article brings people to support same-sex marriage.

    As far as you people analyzing the statistics and saying negative things about them: the statistics in this article is from people who use this website which is quite a lot. If you get statistics from other sources, do you think they would have a larger number of people surveyed? More than likely not!

    Someone said they didn’t think the personality things were true…how could they not be true? All of the things founded there were answered by the people when they answer the questions for matching.

  11. Joshua says:

    David, imagine you just asked the same question about oral sex, and I think you’ll find your answer.

    The biggest challenge with homophobia is that it’s a product of ignorance. It’s one of those things where a person with no information on and no experience with a certain subject forms an opinion regardless, and then defends that opinion passionately. It’s the human condition, really, to feel most strongly about that which we have the least evidence to support.

    After all, if a homophobe HAD the evidence to support their views, they wouldn’t need to rely on passion in the first place. The kicking and screaming only exists because it’s all they have.

    This tends to be why LGBT people sound much more calm and relaxed in arguments about homosexuality than homophobes do, who sound…well, anyone can do a YouTube search for a Tea Party candidate if they’d like to hear the WHARRGARBL.

  12. Tam says:

    David says: “Why do lesbians use toys on each other if they hate that part of a man?”

    Just because a lesbian doesn’t have sex with a man, doesn’t mean she doesn’t find pleasure from a toy fashioned after that part of a man. Maybe you have heard of a thing called a “G” spot in a female. That being stimulated gets a woman off (not all women btw) and where is the “G” spot class? In the vajayjay. And it is so much easier to reach with a toy or penis than a finger!

  13. Shannon M. says:

    I haven’t read all of the comments so I am not sure if this has been mentioned… but I have been on OKC for many years. many. years. I have even found the love of my life on OKC :) That being said… the sun vs earth question is not reliable. How do I know this? Remember quite a few years ago when OKC had an interface change and became all bubbly 2.0? Well, that change knocked around some of the answers to questions. I was well over 2k questions at that time (i had a boring job there for awhile, what better way to past the time than OKC questions and tests?) when i noticed after the change that some of my answers had been confangled, such as the sun vs earth question. I have a bachelor’s of science and even taught middle school science for a few years. Needless to say (but i’m gonna say it anyway :-p) I updated that question VERY QUICKLY. For the sake of my gender I hope it was a coding error on female profiles. Please?

  14. ... says:

    this is stupid. the findings aren’t substantial. it’s also a great way to alienate a target audience.

  15. Ruby says:

    @KB,

    Please post your sources for your erroneous ‘facts’ about the thousands of anonymous partners that gays have, or accept that your statements won’t be taken seriously.

    Oh, and have you done the numbers on the number of STRAIGHT MEN who are child molesters? Please. The Catholic church alone has got all of gaydom beat.

  16. Kelly says:

    Very interesting! Thanks for providing some actual data. I would love to see what happens if you guys did an even more in-depth study perhaps creating subcategories for age as well. Thanks!

  17. Mai Li (OurGalFriday) says:

    You guys should do a writeup about your bisexual users soon! People of fluid sexual orientations (bisexuals, pansexuals, “humansexuals”) have a lot of different perspectives that aren’t represented here (including a high correlation with polyamory), and it would do a lot to reduce the rampant biphobia.

    In February, at a bisexual conference I performed at in Minneapolis, we had a fantastic keynote by Amy Andre, the director of San Francisco Pride, who is herself bi/pansexual and polyamorous. She just finished a huge amount of research on the state of healthcare for bisexuals, which is pretty abysmal due to bias. On a national bias study, Bisexuals ranked below most ethnic groups, gays, and convicted sex offenders in order of how comfortable respondents would feel living next door to someone in that group. They were only above a handful of other groups, including IV drug users.

    It would be really interesting to see the difference in how bisexual men and women percieve themselves on the whole, and the percentages of people stacked up next to the gays and straights. I really hope you guys get to that!

  18. Erin says:

    Jim said:

    One question you might want to survey: “How many heterosexual and gay people really care about all this crap ?”

    I most certainly don’t.

    OkCupid .. get back to what you do best … creating relationships.

    And Jim’s right: what does how people relate to each other have to do with relationships? Stop talking about relationships, dang it!

  19. shim says:

    What was the point of this? Gay advocacy? I think all this attention being paid to gay issues is a waste of time and energy for straight people. Who give’s a shit. Let them do what they do, and mind your own business…

    But this whole advocacy thing being stuffed down our throats at the same rate as the bigotry and hatred towards gays, is equally offending to me…

  20. Ruby says:

    Actually, giving this a second read, I realized that if you apply the straight white guy test to the stuff straight men like, you get ‘my fucking buddies’ up there at the top, a bit higher than ‘the right woman.’ Which might account for all those straight guys getting BJs in the park.

    NOT THAT THERE IS ANYTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

    But seriously dudes, just be honest about it.

  21. Ben says:

    …argue about whatever you want, but please, please- respect that SEXY JAVASCRIPT!

    (right click) + View page source = win.

  22. Tiedyed says:

    @KB

    Where in the world did you get your “data”???? I have a number of friends who happen to be gay and they are not out sleeping with 300 people a day. Most of them tend to be in committed relationships or looking for committed relationships. The friends I have that are straight?? They’re the ones out hooking up with at least seven to ten different people in the last five years. Your numbers are completely messed up and I’d look at where you’re getting your infomation.

    I would look at what Fact Checker says.

    The other thing is that it’s extremely well known that white STRAIGHT middle-aged men tend to be pedophiles, rapists, and serial killers. NOT men or women who happen to be gay. Your entire comment is filled with inaccuracies and misinformation. Seriously–look at where you got those stats from.

  23. blaidd says:

    okcupid is part of the gay Illuminati don’t trust what they say

  24. Lollie Dot Com says:

    I want a question answered: How many gay people do you love, respect and or enjoy? 0, 1-10, 11-30, 31-100….. Cause really, if you don’t love ANY gay people, you’re a homophobic jackass. But I think the truth is, nearly all of us is within one degree of a gay person we like, love, care about, admire, respect….. and guys that are homophobic need to learn how to take their matters in their own hands, because pretty soon only the most homophobic females will date such neanderthals. Gentlemen, this is 2010, not 1960. Wake up.

  25. BellCurve says:

    Whether the data is accurate or not – this analysis is very thought provoking.

    Personally, I am of the thought that those who respond with anxiety toward LGBT, are just that, anxious, and fearful of admitting something to themselves (read – closet). It just makes sense to me.

    As far as converting strait people, I think it’s fantastically funny that straight people view the homosexual as predatory. Cognitive dissonance anyone?

    It all boils down to confidence. If you are confident your strait, why fear LGBT? Honestly? (Violence and bigotry is mildly processed fear and anxiety. One thinks one being brave by standing up and “fighting”, when in fact one is too cowardly to accept and process misunderstood feelings and thoughts with a level head. Mental maturity.)

    IAmA bisexual male. Sexually biased toward wemon, emotionally biased toward men, looking for solid relationships. The thought of spending the rest of my life with a man is extremely appealing. Gay men are so cute and bubbly and quirky.

  26. Avy says:

    David:
    I don’t have answers for all the things you asked, but I do for a couple. Most of them will vary from person to person anyway.
    There is more to sex than which bit goes into which hole. Just because a guy wants to go in the backdoor doesn’t mean he doesn’t want boobs, or that he’d be comfortable being intimate with another man.
    Being a lesbian does not entail hating penises, it entails not dating or sleeping with men. Some lesbians I’ve known find the actual organ gross, but a plastic model carries neither the emotional nor physiological baggage of the real thing. Simply put, a dildo may be shaped like a penis and inserted in the same places, but it’s really very different.
    Oh, and as far as I know the lesbian=hot thing is 1 part taboo, 2 parts extra boobs, 1 part lack of competition. Girls do it too, there is a LOT of Yaoi fanfiction out there. A lot. I may have the proportions wrong, though, and as I said before, the attraction level and reasoning would vary.

  27. epic562 says:

    HOLY CRAP!!!

    I’M GAY!?!

    Cant wait to hear all the “I told you so”s … fml

  28. Ballsdeepf says:

    hahaha i love how canada is so gay…

  29. koala_man says:

    These OkTrends statistics are awesome! My favourite this time was the numbers of gay people on the hunt for straight prey to convert and vice versa! Keep’em coming! (no pun intended)

  30. Raff says:

    @ Big Mac, I’m not sure the men are much smarter, given the survey about the earth’s size. A 5% margin isn’t much. Moreover, I’m not sure that the results of OK Cupid users are very representative. Maybe the kind of women who waste time taking quizzes or looking for dates online represent a dumber set of women already. Finally, it’s not clear that a single question, and that question in particular, makes it clear who’s smart and who’s dumb. Perhaps more men won’t know who wrote ‘Romeo & Juliet.’

  31. Alicia says:

    If you believe in God, the one mentioned in the Bible, then one would rationalize that he loves us all. It is “behaviors” he either likes or dislikes. If being gay is not a “choice”, why then is it stated that homosexuals will not inherit The Kingdom? He would not create you gay and banish you from his reward because of you are gay.

    In addition, sex is an act, it is a learned behavior. Thus “homosexuality” is also a learned behavior. A child is born not knowing a thing about sex or even who they are. Why would one rationalize that one is born gay?

    I agree that males and females have varying degrees of masculinity and/or femininity. Being a masculine female does not make you gay, nor does being a feminine female. I contend that people have a choice in who they sleep with unless they are raped or molested.

  32. kokotron says:

    The “earth VS sun” results I guess means that women have a better sense of humor, I want to believe… :P

  33. Mattia says:

    This of course an analysis of the North American Continent, cause that question on whether the sun or the earth was bigger if anwsered wrongly you dont even pass primary school in Europe and even less you would be allowed to teach..

    Then gays do have more sex than straight people because we are more available. For straight men it is most often more difficult. But of course if they could they would have as much but they cant , there fore they are often more frustrated, more agressive because they don’t use all their free testosterone in their blood.. :-)))
    Am happy to be gay .. lol

  34. Kale says:

    I laughed out loud when i saw that Tegan and Sara was wayyy up there on the lesbian list.
    I can remember the first time i saw Tegan and Sara in 2005 and there were heaps of lesbians who paid to go to the show but few were paying any attention to Tegan and Sara playing.
    They totally ‘love’ Tegan and Sara. I’ve seen them play 5 times since and the lesbians in general behave the same way everytime.

  35. Lance T. says:

    @ Spoon
    Quote
    Spoon says:
    October 12, 2010 at 4:00 pm

    What we should all take from this is that Canada and Oregon are just gay-ing the place up.
    End Quote.
    wow.. So what I gathered from this is that you believe that Canada and Oregon are bad? because let me tell ya something.. I am from Oregon and I am straight. however yes we have a larger tolerance for homo-sexual/Bi-sexual people because we actually use our hearts not our fears.
    I know for a fact that all of the evidence in this is accurate because they used the Database and it logs everything that was entered into OkCupid. they are not speaking for the entire world just OkCupid. its called tolerance people, the fact of the matter is if your a straight male, the chances of a homo-sexual male trying to hook up with you is nill if you flat out tell them you are straight. women seem to be a little more on the explorative side of things and are more willing to have a experience with another woman.
    As per the personality charts and such, that data was taken from the personality test people take, they simply sorted by sexual orientation and gender.
    I have always been in the middle on this subject, i neither support homo-sexuals nor do I bash them, because who in the BLEEP am I to determine what is OK and not OK to do? I can only decide for myself, and if others want to have sexual relations with the same sex then that is their life. i personally have quite a few bi-sexual female and male friends, and all I can say is more power to em. they have a greater understanding of life then 90% of straight people I know.

  36. angelica says:

    What would be nice here would be to contrast yr statistics evidencing that gay peeps don’t have any interest in looking at straight peeps with the comparable figures the other way round. In my experience, for all the claims of ZOMG teh gheys are out to recruit ur children!!|1!, the exact opposite is true: a not insubstantial minority of straight people are convinced they can turn those who are gay (see – *squicksquicksquick* – “all you need is to meet the right man”). So in sharp contrast to those figures up there, a substantial proportion of the people who visit my profile – slightly over 1 in 10, methinks – are straight men. And a few straight women, too – perhaps there’s a little projection in some of those fears about queer recruitment?

  37. ambrose says:

    After reading these statistical surveys you’ve done, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m the most unique user on the site. I am like the complete opposite of every single one of those tag clouds. But then I’m a girl who should have been a guy, so I guess that explains it.

  38. rev jeff says:

    gotta start watching the L word… thinking of picking me up a lesbian

  39. Harry Giles says:

    Thanks for this data. It’s fascinating. Often encouraging. And occasionally worrying.

    A couple of things. First, it would be particularly interesting to contrast your first set of results with how often *straight* people search for *gay* matches. Just as aneccdotal evidence, for example, 90% of the visitors to my lesbian friend’s profile are straight men.

    Also, I’m a bit annoyed by “It turns out that a tiny fraction of gays have two-handedly created the public image of gay sexual recklessness”. If the “two-handedly” revision is supposed to make up for the blame-the-victim implications here, it doesn’t do a very good job, I’m afraid. It’s be nice to make it clearer that “public image” is created and manipulated by a wide range of people, and is not a response to any actually existing promiscuity.

  40. John says:

    @Josh That’s interesting but I disagree, I work in show business with lots of gay people and lots of them talk about how they’re fantasy’s are with straight boys.

    Have you tried posting as a Gay man on one of these sites and seeing how many married/`bi`/bi/bicurious men contact you. If you just use the words discreet, experienced and own place – that will do the trick!

  41. Ozwaldo says:

    I’ve always subtracted 3 from the amount of sexual partners a heterosexual guy tells me he’s had and added 3 to what a a heterosexual female tells me. I don’t really care if I get the number right at the end, but it’s a way to try and strip the social stigmas from self reported numbers. So.. straight guys 3, straight gals 9.. sounds about right ;)

    Not sure about corrective numbers for gays.. I just take their word for it :D

  42. scott says:

    You should sell your data-sets (properly anonymised, of course) to universities. Data like this could make learning statistics fun!

    Oh yeah, and a couple of your commenters need to get out of the house because they are taking this web thing way too seriously.

  43. Jim says:

    Ok cool whatever, gays are trying to legitimize themselves for whatever excuse it is this time. Can you please remove this silly advertisement for this so-called ‘study’ from the front of my OKC profile. Thanks.

  44. Sean says:

    Interesting article. I like how freaked out a lot of the forum posts are!

  45. David says:

    First of all, I resent the statement that basically implies all gay men are sluts and whores. I’m a 24 year old gay male, who has been in a steady relationship for 6 years, and prior to that I had only had sexual experiences with 4 people (only 2 of which involved full intercourse)

    Secondly – every gay man wants to turn straight men? Oh please – don’t flatter your selves. Yes, the pornographic industry has fuelled this with countless movies in which some gay guy prowls after a
    Straight guy – but it’s just that – fantasy. It’s for the purposes of entertainment. And don’t even get me started on the whole “gay-for-pay” debacle. Believe me, I like my men as gay as they come.

  46. Jaymax says:

    To KB, apparently you haven’t done your research either. The figures you quote come from the extreme homophobic Paul Cameron who was de-registered as a psychologist in the ’80. Why was he de-registered? For misrepresenting data and studies in his efforts to vilify homosexuals.

  47. Hannah says:

    Did you do any stats on the number of straight people who searched for ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ profiles? I think that would have probably as interesting or given a bit of context to how it’s used by all.

    Brilliant stats though, very funny, I hope you get a TED Talk if only so you can role out the line ‘It was like two zen koans, one by Meg Ryan, one by a viking’ again!

  48. anon says:

    Well, the sun vs. Earth size question doesn’t actually specify a reference point. The earth is bigger than the sun to the naked eye!

  49. Jim and Alicia says:

    You guys should be punched in the face.

  50. PeacockTango says:

    I’m curious; how many of the straight men on this site have searched for queer women? After all, if it’s just dorky people who aren’t sexually active (as one person mentioned) then that number should be equally low to that of gay people searching for straight people.

    And absolute lol at the guy who suggests 500+ partners on average. Use your head, we don’t have enough queer people around to have that much sex with unless we travel to different cities every other week for a lay and considering how much cash that would cost … just no.