Inductivist

Looking at sexual orientation, gender, and variety of sex partners is a good way to show how men and women really are very different. (The need to document this shows the crazy times we live in.)

According to evolutionary theory, since men can pass on their genes with minimal commitment, they have evolved the tendency to desire non-committal sex with a variety of partners.  Since having children is such a tremendous investment for women, they have been selected to be much choosier about sexual partners.  It's not typically hard for a women to get sex, but it can be a challenge to find partners who have the willingness and ability to provide resources to the offspring, or at least who have high-quality genes to pass on to one's children. 

If you're paying attention, you can see that a conflict arises: men who want many partners, and women who want few.  So many men are not able to get what they want.  But what about gay men?  There is no sexual conflict for them: just a bunch of guys who want novelty.

The General Social Survey (GSS) asked adults about: 1) sexual orientation, and 2) the number of male and female sex partners since age 18 (sample size = 23,579). Let's look at the numbers for male partners first:

















Gay men average 43 male partners--much more than any other group. Coming in at a distant second is male bisexuals with close to 15 men.  Female bisexuals have a mean of roughly 12 male partners, and straight women report an average of 5.5.  The average for lesbians is a little over two men.

Now for the number of female sex partners since 18: 

















The category with the most women partners is bisexual men with a mean of almost 20.  Next is straight men with almost 16 1/2.  Lesbians average close to eight female partners, and the mean for female bisexuals is around 5.  The mean for gay men is 2.6 women.

If we add together partners of either gender, the ranking for the total number of sex partners since 18 looks like this: #1) gay men, #2) bisexual men, #3) bisexual women, #4) straight men, #5) lesbians and #6) straight women.

So, sexual minorities have the most partners, but gay men and lesbians stick out; gay men because their numbers are so much higher, and lesbians because their numbers are atypically low.  Compared to lesbians, gays have around 4 1/2 times the number of partners.

This is consistent with evolutionary theory: men like sexual variety much more than women, and they show this most clearly when they are pursuing partners who also like variety; namely, other men.  Lesbians are not like other sexual minorities in that they do not pursue variety much. Why? Because they are women dealing with female partners.   

Promiscuity and getting a lower-earning husband: Few women seem to read this blog, so I might be talking to myself, but if you want to marry a man who earns more than you, then don't be a slut. Here is the mean number of lifetime sexual partners since age 18 by who has a higher income:


Mean lifetime sexual partners (GSS women, N = 327)

They have the same income 3.24
Spouse has no income 3.65
Husband has a higher income 3.75
Husband has a much higher income 3.80

All wives 4.17

Wife has a much higher income 6.38
Wife has a higher income 7.33

With the exception of the unusual situation of having a husband with no income, women with fewer partners end up with wealthier men. Women who end up with low-earning men were almost twice as promiscuous. More masculine women might explain the correlation, but men are still old-fashioned enough to not want to marry the town whore.

(It might also be the case that women who wait longer to get married because they are building careers may pick up more sex partners along the way, but I still like my interpretation.)

Mean lifetime sexual partners for gay men: Over at Secular Right, Soul Searcher made this comment:

Notice that the prolific Jason Malloy of GNXP has already made clear to Ron Gunhame of the Inductivist blog some of the heartening empirical statistics on gay promiscuity and its relation to gay marriage, to which he has not yet responded.

In particular, Jason finds in his analysis of the GSS data:“I have no idea if there is a faulty assumption somewhere in here, but at face value, this data shows the sexual behavior of homosexual males is actually nearly identical to straight white male sexual behavior. Most shockingly: gay males are just as likely to have one lifetime sexual partner as straight males!

Soul Searcher was refering to a post showing that homosexuals are less likely to think that marital infidelity is wrong. I never did replicate Jason Malloy's analysis, but let's do it now. I'm not sure if I'm doing it precisely the same way he did, but let me lay out the details.

I limited the analysis to men ages 45 and over since the number of different sexual partners has slowed down by that age. Homosexuals are defined as those only having exclusively male partners in the past year (SEXSEX). Unfortunately, we don't have a better measure available.

For straight men, it's only having female partners over the same period. I looked at how many male partners gay men reported having since age 18 (NUMMEN) and how many female partners straight men have had since age 18 (NUMWOMEN). By the way, these questions were asked 12 different years (1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008).


Heterosexual men (N = 2,993)
Mean lifetime partners 17.71
Percent with only one lifetime partner 20.2


Gay men (N = 80)
Mean lifetime partners 46.05
Percent with only one lifetime partner 15.0


I don't know why Jason Malloy's numbers are different from mine. He wouldn't have had 2008 data, but that should make little difference.

According to my analysis, the gay lifetime mean is 2.6 times higher than the straight mean. Both means are inflated by a few men who have hundreds of partners. I don't see where I can get a median calculated.

By contrast, you can see that the percent having only one lifetime partner is not unusual for either group, but it is a little higher for heterosexuals.

Keep in mind that the questions were asked of men from 45 to those into their nineties, so some were young men in the 1920s. I wouldn't expect gay men to have been as promiscuous then as they are now.