Prevalence and Predictors of Non-Heterosexual Behavior, Attraction, and Identity in a Population-Based Sample of Young Women

• In Event: 306 - Section on Sociology of Sexualities Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. Queer Sexualities

Abstract

The LGBT population has been largely excluded from an otherwise rich literature on the relationships, sexual behavior, socioeconomic status, and social lives of young women in the United States. Existing demographic surveys largely fail to measure same-sex sexuality, while sexuality research has drawn primarily on convenience samples, especially of college-attending women. This paper is an original contribution toward filling this gap: I describe the sexual and romantic behavior, attraction, and identity of a population-based sample of non-heterosexual young women. I draw on new data from the Relationship Dynamics and Social Life study (n=579), a population-based longitudinal survey of young women residing in a Michigan county (including women of color and women not enrolled in college, often neglected in sexuality research). I use an original and innovative measurement of sexuality, including separate measures for sexual behavior, attraction, and identity. These sensitive measures capture the increasingly common group refusing to label their sexuality. I find that many young women identifying as heterosexual have had same-sex romantic and sexual experiences, and many non- heterosexual women have had opposite-sex partners. About one-third of the sample (n=213) gave a non-heterosexual response to at least one of these measures. I develop a typology to analyze particular sub-groups (including women indicating same-sex behavior in the absence of same-sex attraction or LGBT identity). Broadly, I find non-heterosexual young women report more socioeconomic disadvantage and more (sometimes risky) adolescent sexual experiences. Finally, I discuss the implications of these findings for the measurement of sexuality within demographic and social science research.

Author

• Jamie Louise Budnick, University of Michigan