AUTHOR=Epstein Robert , Wang Hongyu , Zankich Vanessa R. 

TITLE=Is everyone a mix of straight and gay? A social pressure theory of sexual orientation, with supporting data from a large global sample

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychology

VOLUME=Volume 14 - 2023

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1187377

DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1187377

ISSN=1664-1078

ABSTRACT=Sigmund Freud, Alfred Kinsey, E.O. Wilson, and others have suggested that social pressure suppresses natural tendencies for humans to express bisexuality, the apparent norm for one of our two closest genetic relatives, the bonobo. An analysis of data obtained from a new online sample of 1,150,938 people in 215 countries and territories (63.9% from the US, UK, and Canada) who completed the English version of a validated questionnaire of sexual orientation lends support to this idea. A histogram of scores from 0 (exclusive opposite-sex inclinations) to 18 (exclusive same-sex inclinations) forms a near-normal distribution. Although this distribution