Outward

One-Third of Americans Under 30 Say They’re Not Totally Heterosexual

Women roller skate in rainbow-colored body suits in the 2014 L.A. Pride Parade. 

Photo by David McNew/Getty Images

Hot on the heels of a YouGov survey that found nearly one-half of British 18-to-24-year-olds identifying as something other than totally heterosexual, the same organization has polled 1,000 Americans and found that while 78 percent say they are completely straight, only 66 percent of those under the age of 30 see themselves that way.

Of course, the increasing openness to sexual identification beyond the extremes suggests that the population that identifies as gay is shrinking. Asked to plot themselves on the seven-point Kinsey scale, where 0 is completely straight and 6 is totally gay, 5 percent of the men and 3 percent of the women declared themselves a Kinsey 6. Among the under 30s, just 2 percent saw themselves as entirely homosexual.

In a survey that was mostly focused on attitudes, the most interesting answers came in a question about experience. When asked if they had ever had a sexual experience with a member of the same sex, 12 percent of the heterosexuals said that they had. And, apparently, television, where female bisexuals outnumber the men, is a reliable guide to life: 15 percent of male and 20 percent of female respondents reported that they had had a same-sex sexual encounter.