A new study suggests that women are more likely than men to be in a same-sex relationship.
CBS News reports the study, conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, showed that women under the age of 45 are “three times as likely to report same-sex intimacy as men.” The study also found that seven percent of the women in the survey identified as gay or bisexual compared to four percent of the men.
"The visibility and recognition of bisexuality as a sexual orientation has been growing recently, particularly among younger people," Stephanie Sanders, an associate director of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction at Indiana University, said. "Research suggests that the women may have been more likely to label themselves as lesbians in the past and are more likely to use the bisexual label now."
Sanders, who was not affiliated with the study, cautioned that the results could be misleading since they defined intimacy as any sexual experience with another female and men are more reluctant to be open about sexuality.
Surveys show that women tend to be more accepting of being gay and bisexual, and we certainly live in a culture that tends to eroticize the idea of sex between women," Brian Mustanski, an associate professor with the department of medical social sciences at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, told CBS News. "When you couple these factors with biological tendencies, it's not surprising we see more bisexuality in women."
The study was conducted from 2011 until 2013 and analyzed responses from 9,200 women and men ages 18 to 44. It also found that 17 percent of women have “reported having same-sex contact in their lives” compared to only six percent of men.
Read more at CBS News. ..Source.. by Zach Dennis
