19％的美國人認為自己不是異性戀

Pacific Standard / By Daniel Luzer

October 29, 2013  |  

Since the classification of modern homosexuality in the  19th century (PDF), society』s perception and acceptance of people who have sex with others of their own gender has grown considerably. One continued argument against the widespread acceptance of individuals who belong to that group, though, has to do with its relative size.

自從第一份現代同性戀運動歷史整理文件（詳見PDF）發表以來，社會對與自己同性別的人發生性關係的人群的包容程度已經得到了相當大的提高。然而，至今仍阻礙著這一人群為社會大眾所廣泛接受的一個爭議性話題卻和這個群體的相對規模有關。

At The Atlantic Garance Franke-Ruta wrote that Americans seem to think there are a lot more gay people in the world than there actually are. As she  explained last year, 「surveys show a shockingly high fraction think a quarter of the country is gay or lesbian, when the reality is that it"s probably less than 2 percent.」 Anthropologists, a notably tolerant group, often consider homosexuality, due to its rarity, an  aberrant behavior, like alcoholism or drug abuse, promiscuity or violence.

加朗斯·弗蘭克一魯塔曾在《大西洋月刊》上發表言論稱，美國人似乎都認為同志數量遠比表面數字要多。正如她去年對此作出的解釋說：「調查顯示，很大一部分人認為同性戀佔了全國總人口的四分之一，而現實是，這個人群所佔比例還不到2％。」而人類學家，一個十分寬容的團體，由於同志團體的稀有性，經常把同性戀看作是和酗酒、吸毒、濫交或暴力一樣的異常行為。

But new research indicates that the real prevalence of homosexuality might be a lot higher than previously thought.

但新的研究結果表明，同志群體的數量或許比先前的一般估計要高得多。

The most-cited guess as to what percentage of individuals are homosexual is around 10. Some LGBTQ college groups have even named their clubs things like  The 10% Society, despite the fact that, at some schools (e.g.  Bob Jones University), the percentage of past and present homosexual students is likely much lower, and at some others (Sarah Lawrence or Smith) it might be a considerably higher.

對於同志群體佔總人口的比重具體是多少百分比，被引用的最多的一個估計是10%。有些大學LGBTQ團體甚至已經把自己的社團命名為「10%社會」，儘管事實上，在一些學校（如鮑勃·瓊斯大學），以前和現在的同性戀學生的百分比比例都可能要比這低得多，而其他一些學校（比如說薩拉·勞倫斯學院或史密斯學院），他們的同性戀學生的百分比比例又可能要比這高得多。

That number is based on  Alfred Kinsey"s 1948 study, "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male," in which the Indiana University researcher  concluded that 10 percent of American men "were predominantly homosexual between the ages of 16 and 55." While Kinsey also said that 「males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual,」 and, mixing his metaphors here, 「the world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white,」 the 10 percent number has been repeated for more than 60 years now. (Engaging in homosexual sex between the ages of 16 and 55 is not exactly everyone』s idea of 「gay」—in contemporary understanding it』s something more like the idea of being attracted to a member of one』s own sex, regardless of regular sexual interaction—but Kinsey"s estimate is the closest we』ve come to a widely-agreed-upon percentage.)

這一數字是基於1948年阿爾弗雷德·金賽的研究——《人類男性性行為》得出。經過分析，印第安納大學的研究人員總結說，10％的美國男性回答「16到55歲之間主要是同性戀」。雖然金賽也說，「男性並不代表兩個獨立的人群——異性戀和同性戀，」換句話說就是：「這個世界並沒有被劃分為絕對的兩面。並不是所有的事情都是絕對的。「而到現在為止，10%這個數字也被大家不斷重複引用了60年。（人們並不認為在16到55歲之間參與過同性性行為就意味著自己是「同性戀」。當代人的觀點是，這更像是自己被與自己同性別的人吸引而已，日常的性交互跟自己的性取向沒什麼必然聯繫。但金賽研究所作出的這個估計最接近我們廣泛認可比例。）

But it』s possible that most past and present surveys of homosexuality might have been misleading participants, and the size of the LGBT population could be a lot bigger than 10 percent. That』s according to a new study by researchers from Ohio State University and Boston University published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Katherine Coffman, Lucas Coffman, and Keith Marzilli Ericson indicate that the true percent of the population attracted (if not necessarily exclusively) to their own gender may be almost 20 percent. According to  their study:

We run an experiment on 2,516 U.S. participants. Participants were randomly assigned to either a 「best practices method」 that was computer-based and provides privacy and anonymity, or to a 「veiled elicitation method」 that further conceals individual responses. Answers in the veiled method preclude inference about any particular individual, but can be used to accurately estimate statistics about the population. Comparing the two methods shows sexuality-related questions receive biased responses even under current best practices, and, for many questions, the bias is substantial. The veiled method increased self-reports of non-heterosexual identity by 65% (p<0.05) and same-sex sexual experiences by 59% (p<0.01). The results show non-heterosexuality … [is] substantially underestimated in existing surveys.

但有可能過去和現在大多數對同性戀的調查有可能一直在誤導受訪者，LGBT人口規模有可能遠遠大於10%。以上結論來自一項由全國經濟研究局發布的、由美國俄亥俄州立大學和波士頓大學的研究人員共同合作的新研究。凱瑟琳·科夫曼、盧卡斯·科夫曼和基思·馬爾齊利認為，真正受同性吸引（不一定是完全的）的人群規模佔總人口的比例可能將近20%。他們的研究顯示：

我們對2,516參與者做了一次試驗。參與者一組被隨機分配到「最佳實踐法」組——計算機輔助、嚴格保密和完全匿名；另一組分配到「含蓄的啟發式」組——進一步掩蓋了個人的反應水平。含蓄的方法所產生的回答排除了對任何特定的個人的推論，但可以用來準確地估計人口信息。兩種方式比較結果顯示，即使是在這樣理想的調查條件下，人們在與性取向相關的問題上的回答還是存在偏差，並且這種偏差還挺大。含蓄的調查方法增加了65%（P <0.01）的非異性戀回答率，以及65%（P <0.05）的同性性體驗經歷。結果表明現有的調查大大低估了非異性戀比例。

When asked directly, 11 percent of survey participants said that they did not consider themselves heterosexual. When asked indirectly, some 19 percent of participants indicated that they did not consider themselves heterosexual. This discrepancy was exposed due to some pretty interesting methods, particularly the use of 「blind」 questions. In the direct method, which resulted in the 11 percent response, participants were asked to answer a simple yes or no to the question 「Do you consider yourself to be heterosexual?」 

In the indirect, or 「veiled」 method, the survey asked people to choose between 0 and 4 to indicate their agreement with the statement 「I consider myself to be heterosexual.」 The results don"t necessarily mean that 19 percent of the population is composed of exclusively gay men and exclusively lesbian women, but rather that a significant percentage of the population is unwilling to position themselves at either extreme end of a spectrum.

當被直接詢問的時候，11%的受訪者表示，他們並不認為自己是異性戀。而當受訪者被間接詢問的時候，約有19％的人表示，他們不認為自己是異性戀。這種差異可以通過一些非常有趣的方法被顯示出來，特別是使用「模糊」問題的時候。使用直接詢問方法的時候，被訪者被要求回答一個簡單的是或否的問題「你認為自己是異性戀嗎？」，結果是11%的人給出的答案是「否」。使用間接詢問方法的時候，被訪者被要求從0到4之間選一個分數最為自己對問題「我認為自己是異性戀」的同意程度打分，結果是19%的人給出的答案偏向於「否」。這並不代表著這19%的人都由絕對的男同或女同組成，更確切地應該說：有很多的一部分人不願意把自己置於兩個極端。

Using the direct method, 17 percent or survey respondents indicated that they had had a same-sex experience. But using the veiled method, the researchers concluded that some 27 percent of participants appear to have had some same-sex experiences.

使用直接詢問的方法，17%的受訪者回答有過同性性行為經歷。但使用間接詢問法，研究人員得出的結論是：大約27%的受訪者好像曾經有過同性性行為體驗。

The research was not an attempt to measure the actual size of the country』s gay and lesbian population. And the researchers are careful to temper their findings by cautioning that the survey respondents did not represent a random sample of the adult population. In fact, they note that their study group was younger, more educated, more politically liberal, and less likely to identify as Republican or to describe themselves as being at least 「moderately religious」 than the rest of the country.

這項研究並不是想要調查出全國同性戀人口的總數。研究人員也時常提醒自己所選擇的受訪對象並不是一個可以代表全國成年總人口狀況的隨機樣本。事實上，研究人員特別註明了他們選擇的受訪者與總人口相比更年輕、知識水平更高、更偏向於政治自由，也更少把自己標榜為共和黨人或者宗教積極分子。

The most important takeaway isn"t a final tally of the gay people in society, but, rather, an understanding of the ways in which surveys and other existing attempts to measure such things might be slightly misleading. 「The results show non-heterosexuality and anti-gay sentiment are substantially underestimated in existing surveys, and the privacy afforded by current best practices is not always sufficient to eliminate bias,」 note the researchers, who were just looking at the way surveys might under-count both homosexuality and attitudes toward homosexuality.

這項研究最主要的目地並不是確定社會上同性戀群體的真正規模，而更像是一次針對現行的各種測量方法產生的輕微誤差的重新審視。研究人員看著這些可能既低估了同性戀比例又低估了社會對同性戀群體態度的結果，指出：「研究顯示，現行的調查都大大低估了非異性戀比例和反同性戀情緒，即使是當前考慮進私密性問題的最佳的實踐方式也不足以消除偏差，」

Many gay activists (and human sexuality experts) resist putting humans into exclusive sexual boxes at all. The rate of homosexual behavior in America』s prison system, after all, might be as high as  75 percent. And homosexual behavior among the male aristocracy of Ancient Greece was widespread, at least if we believe Kenneth Dover, the first modern scholarly writer to  discuss the issue.

許多同志活動家（包括一些人權專家）反對把人進行絕對地分類。可不論怎樣，在美國監獄裡，同性性行為的比例有可能高達75%。並且，在古希臘，貴族間的同性性行為也是風行一時，如果我們願意相信肯尼斯·多佛，這位現代第一位討論這類話題的學術作者的話。

As Gore Vidal wrote, over and over: 「There is no such thing as a homosexual or a heterosexual person. There are only homo- or heterosexual acts. Most people are a mixture of impulses if not practices.」  We should probably not worry so much about who is gay so much as recognize that lots of people could potentially do something defined as gay.

正如戈爾·維達爾反反覆復地寫道那樣：「根本就沒有同性戀與異性戀這回事兒，只有同性或異性性行為。如果還沒有實踐的話，大多數人都是一個由衝動組成的混合體。「或許我們不應該這麼在意誰是同性戀，反正很多人都有可能會做一些被定義為同性戀的事情。

「If someone as deluded as I was can be brought out of homosexuality then surely anyone can,」 said Joe Dallas, the speaker at Focus on the Family』s Love Won Out conference. Another way to think of this, however, is that people can also be brought into it. Sexuality is complicated, and our experiences in the bedroom shift, particularly in the case of some members of the ex-gay movement.

「如果有人迷惑，因為我是可以帶出同性戀的話，想必任何人都可以，」喬達拉斯，會議重點對家庭的愛贏得了揚聲器。然而，另一種方式來思考這是人們也可以帶入。性取向是個複雜的概念，我們在床上的體驗也在隨時變動，這一點，對一些參與過脫離同性戀運動的人而言，感受尤甚。

Just don』t expect most surveys to measure how often this sort of thing occurs. It turns out people often don』t answer honestly even when they』re anonymous. 

反正，不要期望大多數研究告訴你一件事情發生的幾率有多大。事實證明，即使是採取匿名方式，人們也不一定會說實話。