Predicting Ambivalence: When Same-Sex Sex is only Sometimes Wrong

• In Event: 390 - Section on Race, Gender and Class Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 13. The Politics of Race, Gender, Class, and Sexuality

Abstract

Attitudes about LGBTQ rights and the morality of same-sex relations have grown increasingly liberal over the past 40 years. Despite growing acceptance, the issue is still very polarizing with approximately half of the population expressing strong opposition and another 10% consistently expresses conflicting feelings, indicating that same-sex relations are only sometimes wrong. Using multinomial and ordinary least squares regression analysis of General Social Survey data over the past 40 years, this research employs the concept of structured sociological ambivalence to find that ambivalent individuals are demographically different from those who take strong moral stances on the question of whether same-sex relations are right or wrong. Structural conflicts in the lives of individuals—e.g. simultaneous membership in institutions with conflicting normative messages—are predictive of ambivalent attitudes about the morality of same-sex sex. Furthermore, the presence of these structured conflicts appears to have a cumulative effect: for each additional conflict that individuals experience, they are 7% more likely to express ambivalent attitudes. These findings provide striking evidence of the predictive power of structured conflicts in producing ambivalent attitudes and expand the existing literature on ambivalence and attitudes about same-sex relations. Ultimately, we propose that ambivalence be conceptualized as a distinctly socio-structural and relational construct—one that may help to signal and identify fertile ground for social change.

Authors

• Sarah M Steele, University of Illinois-Chicago

• Allison Suppan Helmuth, University of Illinois-Chicago