How to Measure Sexual Orientation Range and Why It's Worth Measuring

Abstract

First proposed by Epstein, McKinney, Fox, and Garcia (2012), sexual orientation range (SOR) is an objective continuous measure of the flexibility people have in expressing their sexual orientation. In the present article, three formulas for computing SOR are compared using data obtained from a sample of 54,834 people in 57 countries. A number of statistical measures suggest that SOR is best measured simply as the smaller of two raw scores indicating opposite-sex and same-sex sexual inclinations. In other words, if one's strongest inclinations are same-sex, one's sexual orientation range is best indicated by the strength of one's opposite-sex inclinations, and vice versa. SOR, in combination with mean sexual orientation, another continuous variable, provides a reasonable and useful characterization of sexual orientation, which is and always has been a continuous rather than a categorical phenomenon. The SOR concept also puts the rancorous “choice” debate into an objective, non-inflammatory context.