It seems the whole world is turning more and more bisexual.
A recent survey from the U.K. found that 49 percent of Brits between the ages of 18-24 identify as something other than “100 percent heterosexual” when asked to plot themselves on Alfred Kinsey’s sexuality scale. A similar survey in the U.S. found that 78 percent of Americans identified as heterosexual, but only 4 percent of that 78 percent said they were “100 percent heterosexual.” Now, Israel is the latest country to jump on the bisexual bandwagon.
Related: PHOTOS: A Private Peek Into The Homoerotic Lives Of Israeli Soldiers
The Israeli website Mako teamed up with the Pannels Institute to conduct a study in which they asked 600 non-religious Israeli Jews over the age of 18 about their sexual preferences, and the results may delight you.
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Researchers found that 67 percent of respondents considered themselves to be heterosexual, but only 3 percent of that 67 percent said they were “100 percent homosexual.” The remaining 30 percent said they were somewhere in-between straight and gay.
So what does all this mean exactly? Aside from the fact that more and more people around the world are embracing their sexual fluidity, it also means we’ve found our next vacation destination.
Tel Aviv, here we come!
Related: PHOTOS: Gorgeous Middle Eastern Guys Get Their Dance On In Tel Aviv
Michael Clifford
Not enough if they look like this guy! 🙂
Seth Ruimveld
Seth Ruimveld
Clark35
Bisexuality exists in women and men; but Queerty seems to want to believe that most men are bisexual which is not true.
Jim White
The entire worldwide male population didn’t just wake up and decide to be bisexual. They’ve been aware of their gender likes since the dawn of time. How preposterous would it be otherwise? We’re just no longer afraid of it
Glücklich
Works for me. Hot Israeli men…hubba hubba.
http://hotisraeliguys.tumblr.com/
Couldn’t turn up a Palestinian Tumblr but Arab guys’re no chopped liver, either.
http://hotarabmales.tumblr.com/
Both appear to be SAFE-ish For Work.
Sameer Nurani
Yup. Done many of them before I got married. Not like that witch Kim!
Taskebab
Well Lets not go To Israel, seeing how you can get stabbed to death at gay prides over there…and for some reason it’s still considered a good place to be for gays…
ingyaom
What these “studies” don’t say is what “not 100% heterosexual” means. Does it mean “looked at another man’s penis”, or “jerked off with a boy at school” once? If so, they may not mean much of interest.
Joshua Glass
HAM
Robothedestroyer
This is cool, and hot! I really wish “bi sexual” would be replaced with “sexually fluid” because it makes a whole lot more sense. But I have always looked at human sexuality, especially male sexuality (because I’m male…) as super complex. I really feel that a great majority of men, if taken away from social walls keeping them from experimenting, would happily participate in homosexual sex. People would be happier if they just let their hair down and got busy when the mood takes them with whomever got them there in the first place. Alas, in a perfect world I suppose.
Then again, I could be wrong.
Bauhaus
@Glücklich:
Shazam! I’ve always had a thing… Never been. Uncharted waters.
Jacob23
Graham Gremore, the polling outfit is called the Panels Institute, not the Pannels Institute. I see you are bringing the same attention to detail and concern for accuracy to this story as you did to your coverage of Stonewall.
This Israeli survey, showing only 3% of the adult population identifying as 100% hetero, is completely out there on its own. No other survey ever conducted in any country has ever shown anything even remotely resembling these results. I am not sure what is going on here. It would have been good to get a link to the survey, but there’s no question wording which would account for this result. Panels is a legitimate polling and survey outfit. They have been around for years and conduct polling on political and social issues. So I don’t think there is any fraud going on here, but something is screwy with the results.
The 2 YouGov surveys are also far afield but it’s possible to reconcile their results with those in other surveys. Most surveys historically ask respondents whether they are homosexual/gay, bisexual, or heterosexua/straight. From 1994 to the present, these surveys generally yield responses of about 1-2% gay, .6-2% bi, 1-3% don’t know or refuse to answer, and everyone else – typically around 96% – straight. The numbers for gay and bi increase if the survey asks about sexual experience rather than identity labels.
If you look at the YouGov surveys, you see that they asked the traditional identity question but then also asked a second question, in which respondents are requested to place themselves on the Kinsey scale of 0-6. When they are asked the traditional question, 89% in both the US and the UK respond straight. That’s still about 6-7% lower than historical surveys, but not a completely crazy result. When asked the Kinsey scale question, 78%(US) and 72%(UK) call themselves Kinsey 0 (completely hetero). When you add the Kinsey 0s, 1s and 2s, you get to the high 80% range. Hopefully, we’ll have other surveys in the US asking this Kinsey scale question and then we’ll see if these results can be replicated. However, I doubt if we’ll ever see the Israeli results of 3% totally hetero being replicated anywhere.
Captain Obvious
Here we go with this bull again. Have fun with your internet fantasy, you have yet to prove it in real life, because it’s not happening.
DjARD
I hate these headlines about these studies so much, because it seems nobody actually reads this shit.
Let’s look at the U.S. study provided here. The majority of respondents age 18-29 – 64% – identify as completely heterosexual. 10% identify as a 1 on the Kinsey scale (almost exclusively heterosexual, with only fleeting instances on homosexual activity). While 36% is big, it becomes less incredible when one looks at the other parts of the study:
Only 15% of men overall reported having same-sex sexual activity and experiences, with the number running at 20% for both genders in the 18-29 age rage. It’s unclear what “sexual” is here, though – it could mean just a drunken kiss.
Only 7% of men who identified as heterosexual overall reported having an actual willingness to to engage in same-sex activity (with another 4% undecided). In the 18-29 age range for both genders, the number was at 17% for willingness, and 15% for “don’t know”.
For relationship, only 5% of men showed willingness, with another 5% undecided. In the 18-29 age range for both genders, the number was 13% for willingness, and 14% undecided.
These headlines are making these studies sound like they reached the conclusion that half of all dudes are secretly ready for bisexual fun times. That’s not true, at all. What these studies have shows is a less stigma, similar to that around interracial relationships – if you did these kinds of studies with that, and they have been done, most people answer with similar things. If everything was just right, they’d have sex with or enter a relationship with somebody outside of their race – but the reality is most people don’t, and the conditions are rarely right for it (due to ingrained societal racism). They’re *possibilities* – but they’re not actions most people are actually acting on.
The numbers here are consistent, if slightly higher, with what has been found over the past half century. About 1 in 5 men seems open and willing to have same-sex sexual encounters (even if they identify as “straight”), with around 1 in 10 being open to same-sex romantic relationships. Those are general numbers, of course, but that’s been the average pattern observed from everything I’ve read.
Stop distorting statistics to satisfy your school-boy “gay4pay” fetish, Queerty.
Alex Banx
I won’t believe how many that don’t… c’mon now.
Jacob23
@Robothedestroyer: Bisexuality is not synonymous with “sexually fluid” and thus it would be wrong to suggest that the latter term could replace the former. Bisexuality is a sexual orientation. It is a stable measure of sexual attraction to both sexes. Similarly those people who are mostly hetero (Kinsey 1s and 2s) and mostly homosexual (Kinsey 4s and 5s) are not any more “fluid” than a 0 or a 6. The sexual conduct of Kinsey 1s through 5s may be more varied than the 0s and the 6s. They may be more willing to explore or “experiment” because the underlying attraction to both sexes exists. But the orientation itself is not changing.
Glücklich
@Bauhaus:
Haven’t been to Israel but I’ve been to the UAE twice. Not sure how much that counts since it seems it’s mostly Brits and Americans over there.
BlueDude
WAAAY too much circumcision for my tastes. I prefer Boiz wit da Hoodz. But, I love Jewish food.
Hal-James Pederson
Only because if you say you are gay (and they are) you are dead meat.
Gerardo Lescano
La mayoria d los homvres son bisexuales..por eso existen los homos….si no fuera por ellos no existiriamos
Rob Laughlin
Time for a vacation
KEVINVENTION
Even though I don’t put much stock in this latest round of voodoo, social-science bullshit, I’ll still let it be music to my ears — even if it’s just wishful thinking. I think Israeli men are some of the most beautiful in the world…
OzJosh
Anybody who has spent time in Israel will have no trouble seeing this for what it is. It’s all about twisted Israeli machismo and so many layers of religious b.s. that no man there can think straight. One of the most seriously f***** up societies on earth.
Sansacro
@DjARD: Persuasive and contextually grounded post
Billy Budd
If there were NO repression from society, bisexuality WOULD BE THE NORM. Just like it is in the animal kingdom. Watch the Bonobo monkeys in action, for example. They are our closest relatives.
jwtraveler
@Taskebab: Don’t come to the U.S. either. Gay people get murdered here too.
jwtraveler
“67 percent of respondents considered themselves to be heterosexual, but only 3 percent of that 67 percent said they were “100 percent homosexual.” The remaining 30 percent said they were somewhere in-between straight and gay.”
So 3% of the 67% heterosexuals are 100% homosexual and the remaining 30% are somewhere in between. Huh?
Someone needs a course in Statistics, or arithmetic.
Brian
I’m sorry but there is no bisexual bandwagon as far as men are concerned. Never has been. Men, being highly sexual creatures, have ALWAYS been able to swing both ways. Hundreds of years ago, thousands of years ago, millions of years ago…nothing has changed.
If there is a bisexual bandwagon, it applies to women. Female sexual behavior is largely determined by men. It’s a rewards-based sexuality where she aligns her sexual behavior with his sexual needs, and is rewarded for it. You only have to look at how women pretend to be bisexual in order to turn on a sleazy straight-identifying guy who subsequently rewards her in various ways.
Look also at female strippers and how they perform on stage in front of men. Look at female prostitutes who cater to a man’s every desire.
Male sexuality is based on satisfying a highly sexual urge, female sexuality is based on selling herself to men.
meghanada
When will Israel be arresting the perpetrator of the gay youth center shooting, who’s been at large for SIX YEARS, NOW? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Tel_Aviv_gay_centre_shooting
moldisdelicious
Who cares.
reallygoodthings
Why don’t you ask how many Israeli gay men support the apartheid system against Palestinians imprisoned in Gaza? This is not a “gay destination” anymore than South Africa was under that apartheid system. It’s unconscionable to overlook the horror perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians. Pinkwashing!
Pistolo
So why don’t these people put their money where their mouth is? Why are gay people always they minority if everyone is so damn sexually-fluid? It’s because they aren’t. They devote .5% of their typically heterosexual thoughts to homosexuality and suddenly they’re not completely straight in the biggest way. They’re only a tantalizing 99.5% heterosexual! Oh my dear lord, let’s all flock to them! To be honest, it feels like appropriation. The more heterosexual people who claim to be slightly gay, the more it dilutes the gay community because suddenly now anybody can be gay just by fleetingly pondering whether or not they might be. It’s like saying anyone who has ever dressed in drag is wholeheartedly gender-fluid or trans. It’s bulls–t.
Also, Israel is always trying to create this postcard image of being some liberal shangri-la. It’s because they desperately need America’s support and they have no issues enticing the right wing with all the biblical significance their country has so they have to double liberal propaganda to cover their bets. It’s just a distraction from their largely theocratic country and the nut running it who is fixing to get us all nuked with his belligerence and racism. And no, that does not make me a proponent of Hamas to be not-so-fond of Israel. Trust me, there’s plenty of indignation to go around.
surreal33
Americans are lying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kangol
@reallygoodthings: Great point! Though I support Israeli I also think they should be asked how many support the apartheid against the Palestinians and the virulent anti-black r@cism against African Israelis, including black Jews in Israel? PINKWASHING is disgusting.
dean3000
@reallygoodthings: same thing happens in the UK under the name of pink news. It seems cliches are there for a reason