Predicting Ambivalence: When Same-Sex Sex is Only “Sometimes Wrong”

Abstract

ABSTRACTDespite Americans’ growing acceptance of LGBTQ people and their sexual behaviors over the past 40 years, approximately 10% of the population consistently expresses conflicted feelings, reporting that same-sex sex is only sometimes wrong. This research employs a theory of socially structured ambivalence to examine how individuals with ambivalence toward the morality of same-sex sex differ from those with strong moral stances. Using multinomial regression analysis of General Social Survey data, we find that socio-structural conflicts—e.g. simultaneous membership in institutions with conflicting normative messages—are predictive of ambivalent attitudes, and the presence of these structured conflicts appears to have a cumulative effect. These findings provide evidence of the predictive power of socially structured conflicts in producing ambivalent attitudes and expand the existing literature on ambivalence and attitudes about same-sex relations. We propose that scholars conceptualize ambivalence as a distinctly socio-structural and relational construct that may help to signal fertile ground for social change.