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:
- 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.
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.
- 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:
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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.

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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.

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?




To the guy who was in prison. Even the most sheltered of adults know that the vast majority of male-on-male sex in jails and prisons could hardly be called “gay sex.” Typically, it’s called “the order of things” and a way to vent lust with no women around. For the true homosexuals, it’s often called “survival.” A few may be lifers or serving long sentences, and “relationships” do occur, but most of the time, it could not be what we call consensual. Many gay men enter jail or prison to find that in order to survive, they either have to become a hardened monster or become someone’s (or a whole lot of someones’) toy.
For the most part, I agree with this article. I have had some gay encounters that were simply terrible and out of my hands though. Firstly, I am not gay. I’ve had my ass slapped while walking in a mall by a gay man though. Ever since then, I’ve been a bit nervous about homosexual men.
Also, people said that it was wrong of me to hit the guy for slapping my ass. They called me names like “bigot” and “intolerant” for even mentioning that act being vulgar. Perhaps jumping to fists was a bit irrational, but the act was still wrong in my opinion. I acted similarly when a girl I didn’t know grabbed my ass. I told her to “get lost” (the words I actually used were more colorful).
I wasn’t homophobic at all until I experienced that calamity. I’m kind of nervous to be around gay people not because I think they’re looking at me in a sexual way. It is the possibility of being ostracized due to the way I act if one does happen to hit on me again.
Anyways… just thought that my life experience might be interesting to whoever reads this. Also, OKC doesn’t have stats on how people act outside of OKC… limited domain guys. At least I think they dont… they could be spying on us all. Who KNOWS!
Very interesting…burst out laughing at the L Word part though, ah stereotypes.
I don’t mean to be rude, but it seems that a lot of things on this site are aimed at dividing homosexual and heterosexual people even more. If you think there is such a big problem with that, why are you furthering it? In some places it even seems like you are specifically targeting heterosexuals as inferior. In addition, some of your “facts” seem to be a little odd. For example the personality traits based on orientation for straight females is pretty much saying that straight girls have no personality. I’m sorry, but this is just unbelievably stereotypical, and extremely negative toward heterosexuals.
Things like this do not solve the problem.
All the people whining about statistics need to go get laid.
Evan Haney, I love you.
One thing that really messed up about this data is that it’s all single people! Polling people from a dating site is not an accurate sample of the USA, by any stretch of the imagination.
Putting The L Word in big letters for lesbians was so stereotypical and annoying……as were many other things about this “data”. As a bisexual woman that leans toward women and lets the women I’m dating assume that I’m gay…..single people are really good at telling people what we think they want to hear. This data is a mess.
Uh oh, I used to love Buffy the Vampire Slayer…
I suppose I should just move to Colorado, take some horticulture classes, and settle in with a nice Ayn Rand novel.
Love it!
I take a question like “which is bigger, the earth or the sun” and ask “bigger in which way?” The earth is potentially more significant to many humans than the sun, because we live here. They need to specify “Which is bigger in mass/volume/size” for me to give a flying fuck how people answer.
As for your generalization at the beginning that no gays are interested in straights, this is also untrue. While the vast majority keep to themselves, there are some who have a “straight fetish,” such as a friend of mine who has occasional breakdowns because I reject his advances. I’m not gay, and that’s how he likes his men, for some reason. Doesn’t offend me, it’s just irritating when he cries about it like a little girl.
Anyway, aside from the fact that many of your statistics are bogged down by potentially incorrect assumptions, I really appreciate this work. It’s about time somebody uses social networking to do something important, and this is certainly a large step in the right direction. Thank you for your contribution.
I enjoyed this. I echo the concerns of others that this only represents the people on OkCupid, which represents people who are trying to make themselves look appealing to people of the “corresponding” sex and orientation. I for one know that quite a few lesbians I know have found it a bit odd that I’ve never seen The L Word, but more than a few of us have only seen a little bit but put it up there anyways. It’s a “like” we put out there so people will “like” us more.
I also agree that what people call themselves on OkC isn’t quite representative of what they call themselves out in the great wide world. For starters, I’m actually not “female” per se. I’m a trans woman, which is also why I stopped listing myself as bisexual–I got tired of guys messaging me, finding out (uh, when I go right out and tell them) and then calling me a deceiver because I don’t “look” trans. Harmful stereotype, but not really a reality. I consider myself pansexual in orientation, though I usually identify myself as a lesbian just because it’s a better descriptor of how I want the world to see me.
I’d like something like this that studies the “other” parts of the LGBTIQ acronym. I know there’s a fair amount of transpeople on here because I’ve met several transwomen and know of many transmen, and that’s coming from a very small window. Of course, you’d have to give us an optional means of self-identification to do that.
Is there a way to see how my profile fits in to the “Profile Correlation to the Norm” chart? I’d like to see that.
“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. ”
Actually, there are plenty of people who are :/
Maybe you should change the lesson from ‘and no one’s saying Indians shouldn’t marry!’ to ‘and we don’t listen to the douchebags who say Indians shouldn’t marry!’
I wonder how the stats would correlate to alcoholics. I have met, known and worked with many friendly, positive, and successful alcoholics, yet they are looked on as having a problem and to be not living up to the best they can be. I see gay people that way also. No matter how well adjusted they seem to be they are not whole, in my view. I feel the same compassion for them as I do for someone who was never able to create satisfying relationships in their life. If you hate me for saying this you are inviting evil into your life. I also believe most gay people know inside themselves they have made a compromise, in choosing to “accept” their lifestyle , for whatever reason. Maybe we all accept some convenient compromise but that is no reason to lower the standard of the value of a man and a woman being married as the best relationship possible.
I would be interested in knowing the percentage of straight men who ever searched for gay men, corresponding to your statistic that only 0.6% of gay men have ever searched for straight matches.
I would also like to know if that 0.6% only includes gay men who searched for straight MALE matches.
wow…brilliant…these statistics should be broadcast around the world – then we can really say it’s a queer old world!
Thanks OK Cupid for all your work!
Antony
Awesome study.. can I work for you ?
OkCupid, I was just wondering where you got your statistics, and also what does 1% equal per person? I love the flow charts, but they’re too symmetrical/balanced visually to be real. Also, your last paragraph is a little rash. Native Americans are a race. Being gay is a personal desire. Totally different.
Just saying. Fix it.
Can we put a five-star rating system on these articles? Could be interesting…
Also, while it seems like you’re making an effort to be PC…please try harder
This is a good start. Although I still am interested to know why it seems there is a disproportionate ratio of females on OKCupid that consider themselves bi-sexual compared to the general population.
love it! i hope this goes on the 6 and 7 o’clock news. those are the people who really need to see this. our country needs solid facts to push change right now.
I think that is someone wants to seduce someone of another orientation, OK Cupid isn’t where they would do it. The odds are stacked against them. But I’m not sure you can assume it never happens because it doesn’t happen on OK Cupid. Just saying.
Being gay is just wrong, okcupid youve shown your face with such statements.
I’m curious how different each of the ethnicities are from the norm. Is Indian especially far off or on par with many others? Would it be difficult to get (and display) the data for them as well?
Are you saying Bobby Jindal isn’t American?
You do know that Bobby Jindal was born in Louisiana, right?
Hey! I’m a huge gay rights activist and support of full gay rights. But the truth is that not ALL “Gay people aren’t promiscuous.” And also, not ALL “gay people aren’t not sexually interested in straights.” Remember, don’t generalize!
You also have to take into account that most of these people are looking for people to date or have sex with or be friends with or whatever. I did a research project on the personalities people present in personal ads & found that most people project pretty stereotypical persona in such forums. Same with looking for a roommate – you want to be interesting without being weird & you want to show the people you identify with that you are like them, so it’s like a centrifuge. I think that this research probably holds fairly well, but you have to take it with a grain of salt – I’m willing to bet gay and Indian people are a lot more like straight & white people than you’ll find on such a site, most are just blowing their stereotypes out of proportion to flag down others who will recognize it.
Thanks for your mind opening report on this OKCupid! You didn’t have to, but you seem to care and that makes me happy. Guess everybody out there knows someone who’s gay or lesbian. I just hope you could tear down some walls in some peoples minds.
I really wish that OKCupid would work some of these stats on trans folk as we are a part of the dating scene. we do exist and we are loving and looking for love, not just simply a fetish.. the information provided was very interesting statistics overall.
Just a note on these statistics and “things people like”:
OKCupid thinks I think things just because I mention them in my profile (without any sort of keyword brackets involved).
I am not a vegan and stated so in my profile, but OKCupid saw the word “vegan” and thought I liked it and tried to pair me with vegans really hard saying “you’re both interested in’vegan'”. So….I wonder how many of these “likes” are people saying “i cannot stand the L word” or “I hate Katy Perry”. I had to try and fix this by editing things that I hate out of my profile and/or rewording things not to include the actual word.
You could solve this by giving us a “hater box”, something that you don’t use to calculate our approval of things just because we mention it.
Wow, as interesting as all this is, I still don’t care who sleeps with who or marries who. The sexual habits/preferences of anyone else are nothing I have been or ever would be interested to know. Some things are just none of my or anyone else’s business.
@ Omnichronos: First of all, your argument that this census is incorrect is already flawed, because the author stated at the beginning that these were statistics that had been gathered through this site. It is up to the reader to correctly assume that these numbers are not set in stone, as the people who participated in this survey are members of okcupid. It is obviously not 100% accurate, as the world’s population is far too vast to ever compile an accurate census regarding type of information. The only thing that the reader is supposed to glean from these surveys is the fact that ACCORDING TO THESE SURVEYS, this is what was revealed.
Also, you state that more people would have homosexual relations if it were less taboo to do so; I disagree with you wholeheartedly. While sexuality is indeed a gray area and yes, most people are inherently ingrained with bisexual tendencies, that does not mean that straight people are going to run out and begin pursuing same sex relationships if it were to become socially and morally acceptable to the masses overnight. There is a difference between true bisexuality and curiosity; you would do well to learn about it.
In conclusion, sexuality is a very gray area, and while I appreciate the fact that you have a better knowledge of it than most people, it is hubris of you to assume that just because you learned something in your graduate class then that makes it so. A gay man may appreciate a more masculine acting man, but that does not mean he is interested in bedding straight men. Yes, there may be a small percentage of homosexual men who want to convert straight guys into gay people, but that is obviously not at the top of most gay people’s agenda…we are more interested in equality, and having the same rights afforded to us that heterosexual people have. Your comment that the author is trying to downplay the fact that gay guys are in fact very interested in converting straight men borders on ludicrous.
This is incredible. First time I actually saw some good hard numbers on this issue. The geographical breakup of sexual curiosity was particularly interesting. As a gay male myself, I always had the feeling that at the very least, gay males are no more promiscuous than straight males….and from the data here it looks like that’s true! Thank you OkCupid for writing this eye-opening article.
No threat? They want to take away the freedom of speech of anyone who doesn’t agree with gay marriage. They are ok with vandalizing properties and buildings of anyone who opposes it. They seem to believe they are the only ones entitled to voice their opinion. There is the much increased (and proven) risk in STDs. Gosh, if someone uses the word “gay” in the wrong context, the whole gay rights activists dictate how and when it is appropriate to use the word “gay.” To be honest, I am sick of it.
Firstly,
having been raised to believe I was “sugar and spive and everything nice”
I am not more violent than a straight girl nor less spiritual.
I am more honest because I’m not worried about countering those few straight males who might be too caught up in straight propganda about “crazy girls” – those gilrs who’ll oh, I dunno., throw something at the womanizer who’s used them for casual sex after having led them on?
Gays don’t look for straights to convert .
Staraights do seem to look for gays to convert or use though.
In our society, it’s more accepted to be openly straight so I understand that there are closet cases and latencies and that straights are allowed to feel more comfortable actively pursuing anything sexual but:
At the risk of being labeled a “man hater” when I reveal these true facts of my personal OkC experience, I’ll continue:
What are the statistics about the number of straight men looking for all the
” sexual/romantic women only” who didn’t find it necessary to leave out “gay women” in their match requirements? I doubt the number is negelegible.
There are enough of a number of them who are visiting my profile and those of other gay girls. Other gay women whose profiles I visit have been so accosted by straight men that when I visit their profilels there are great big NO MEN and “Please stop emailing me if you are a sleazy guy” disclaimers .
Also, this is hard to prove but, what about the straight girls who claim to be bisexual and are just on here to get a girl for a threesome just to please their man but have never actually been in love with a woman nor would even consider marrying one nor would ever vote against Prop 8?
Another fantastic okcupid analysis. I espeically love the earth vs sun question. really, 10% of females? On odds, i talked with at least 2 women this week who would answer that wrong.
Alicia, you poor uneducated thing.
I think the word “homosexual” is throwing you off here. Being homosexual is not about who you like to have sex with. It’s about who you LOVE. I can see myself living with and being partners with a man, therefore I am gay. If I had sex with men and women but wanted to marry and love a woman, monogamously, I would be straight, or bi, depending on what I believe. A system that labels people so rigidly must be comforting to you; it must be nice to feel, every time you have sex with your husband, that not only are you doing what god intends, but that you can feel superior to all the others who are doing it “wrongly”.
I also disagree that sex is a “learned behaviour”. It is something innate, which you are seemingly confusing with being learned as it develops later, but that’s just simply not true. Look to the animal kingdom for proof. Sexual reproduction takes place in creatures as small as microorganisms that just aren’t capable of “learning”. No amount of time round the back of the bike sheds with a copy of Attitude is going to make the slightest difference to your orientation, single-celled organism or otherwise.
I think this is all tied into liking being one of the chosen people. Your God blesses everything you do and damns all those who don’t conform, and that makes you feel superior, doesn’t it? It must be like a warm blanket to think that you are one of the ones who are capable of controlling themselves, even to the point that you believe you have no homosexual urges because of your great throbbing faith in the almighty. Well, Alicia, that is ALSO just plain wrong. I have been gay ever since I can remember. I tried to fight it. I tried just not acting on it for several years. Still it persists. If the lord, should such an awesome bro actually exist, didn’t make me gay, then he certainly allowed it to continue.
A little bit of advice for all the other Alicias out there: you can’t judge because you’ve never been through it, just the same as you can’t judge a black person. What is it about homophobics that leads them to believe they understand everything, ever? If you aren’t it, you have no basis to condemn it. What happens between two consensual adults should always be between them alone.
Great article. I love this blog!!!
This is awesome. And based on what I have learned here, I think I might be gay! Though I have previously I have been operating in a straight woman’s clothing.
This was a great post! I love that you use this website as a sociological tool, and share your findings with the public. Your posts are very informative. One thing I found very interesting is that in the “stiff people like” section, straight women are the only ones who mention education, and that “medical field” is such a prominent interest for them. Keep up the outstanding work!
I am a guy and as it turned out I am attracted to women. I spent time in the military and the Merchant Marine and I know I wasted many a beautiful night with moon swept decks because I did not have a companion with me… Because of this I know that sexual orientation is a God given thing. I don’t know that we can reason how it is given but it comes from God. I was in the wrong place to be able to indulge myself in my God’s gift but there were a lot of sailors who were in the absolutely right place.
Next; I am not in line with the research but I believe that is because I am a bohemian. There are pockets of us too, people who are not that interested in what the straight people think, or smell like, or fear.
Last; I just want to bless everybody. We are here to develop into beings who are able to and are capable of LOVE. After we leave here there is no longer a gender and so there is no longer an orientation. It is an uniquely Earthbound condition. In the USA it is getting better and worse at the same time. Those who reject Love are fighting against Love thinking they are on the moral high-ground. Those who work in Love are winning. I know, no matter what happens over the next five years, it won’t make up for this dark chapter in the history of the USA, just like no time has healed the genocide perpetrated on the Irish by the English. But, people will be able to be people. That is just what we are supposed to be and we are supposed to embrace God’s gifts.
Peace Brothers and Sisters
KCO’D B.Msc
ULC
I find it interesting that NONE of the profile keyphrases listed (gay or straight) appear in my profile. I’m the remainder!
As a straight female (I think) I find all this very informative, However food for thought:
Long ago, I had a great ‘girlfriend’ we had a lot in common, he once told me that had I not ‘latched onto’ my then boyfriend, he would himself, have tried for him, How does this fit into your theory??????
Awesome, awesome, awesome.
Wow! So what does this mean for bisexual Indians… ??? Just wondering.
This was so great. I really enjoyed the charts and comparisons. Yay Cupid!
amazing!
Straight sex all the way jesus said in bible straight adam and eav no adam and steve
what percentage of the claimed straights are really gay? It would appaer to be 28% by my count