Why ‘sexual inconsistency’ can make unhappy relationships
theconversation.comnew research challenges these popular assumptions.Many people in same-sex relationships do not identify themselves as gay or lesbian, nor do they report feeling exclusive same-sex attraction.
Analyzing a survey of 3,510 adults conducted between 2017–2022 in the Unites States, we found that 27 per cent of respondents with a same-sex partner did not report being exclusively attracted to people of the same-sex.
Furthermore, 15 per cent of respondents in same-sex relationships did not self-identify as gay or lesbian.Meanwhile, for those in different-sex relationships, four per cent did not self-identify as straight, and seven per cent reported having some attraction to people of the same sex.These findings tell us that how people feel about their sexual identity or sexual attraction is not necessarily consistent with how they may appear with their partner.We use the term “sexual inconsistency” to capture this common yet largely hidden phenomenon.
Sexuality encompasses multiple dimensions: sexual identity, sexual attraction, and sexual practice — to name a few. Sexual identity refers to how people identify their membership to socially defined sexual groups such as gay, lesbian, straight, bisexual and others.
