Sexual correlates of homosexual experience: An exploratory study of college women

Abstract

One of the more important contributions of the pioneering Reports was to break down sexual sterotypes. Previous to its publication (Kinsey, et al., 1948; Kinsey, et al., 1953) an almost universally held assumption was that the homosexual role included a lack of interest in the opposite sex (McIntosh, 1968). Kinsey and his associates found that current homosexuals have far more heterosexual experience in their background than heterosexuals have had homosexual experience. This was especially true of women. However, it is possible to make an even stronger statement than this: until their early 20s, Lesbians report at least as much heterosexual contact as, and in some respects, significantly more than, is true of heterosexual women. In a study by Saghir and Robins (1973: 242-265) significantly more of the homosexual women in their sample said that they had engaged in sexual intercourse with a man than was true of their matched heterosexual controls (79 percent versus 58 percent). On almost all indicators of heterosexual involvement the two groups were remarkably similar, with Lesbians exhibiting, for some measures, greater levels of activity and involvement. After their early 20s, however, the heterosexual activity of the homosexual women in the Saghir and Robins study declined rapidly, while it climbed for the heterosexually inclined women. The dimensions along which the Lesbians displayed significantly lower levels of involvement, even during and before their early 20s, were: (1) frequency of intercourse (76 percent of the homosexuals but 32 percent of the heterosexual controls having intercourse with a man less than once a week); (2) experience of orgasm in intercourse (61 percent of homosexuals but 32 percent of heterosexual controls never having experienced orgasm in heterosexual intercourse); (3) emotional and sexual indifference toward