MAY 14, 1993 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE 9

Janus Report: 9% men, 5% women identify as gay or bi

Continued from Page 1

"We promise confidentiality, and we do our damnedest to make sure that's the case," said Dr. Daniel Klepinger, who coauthored the study.

But Dr. Wardell Pomeroy, one of the nation's foremost sex researchers, said a promise by a total stranger to not release delicate sexual information that could lead to ostracization from family or friends, or the loss of a job, is not enough.

"That doesn't mean that the person will believe it," said Pomeroy, who was chief assistant to Dr. Alfred Kinsey, who conducted the nation's most extensive sexualbehavior survey in the 1940s and 1950s.

Asking a person to reveal both his sexuality and information such as his workplace and Social Security number "just kills the truthfulness of the questionnaire," he said.

Another top sex researcher, Dr. C.A. Tripp, director of the Long Island-based Psychological Research Associates, gasped, "Oh my God," when informed by a reporter how the survey was conducted.

"That's so experimentally naive," he said, "People aren't going to reveal the truth if they have to give out their Social Security number. That is so nonsensical."

"Until we end discrimination and violence against us we will never have an accurate sense of how many of us there are," said Robin Kane, spokeswoman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "They really don't understand how frightening it is in this homophobic society to identify as gay. No matter how confidential someone says this is, you're going to be reluctant to tell a stranger what sexual behavior you engage in.

"Yes, there is an undercount"

Klepinger acknowledged that some gay and bisexual men may not have answered the sexual orientation question truthfully. "The position we like to take is that, yes, there is an undercount," he said, adding that "We'll never really know whether we're getting accurate information unless we follow people around to see what they do."

Klepinger said that the information on Social Security numbers, workplaces and friends and relatives was garnered because researchers wanted to do surveys on attitudes and behaviors 18 months apart, to ensure that the answers to the attitude questions did not influence answers to the behavior questions. The information was used to track down people who had moved.

The survey found that 1.1 percent of men were exclusively homosexual during the previous 10 years, and that 2.3 percent had at least one homosexual experience during that time.

The sexual orientation question is only a small part of the Battelle survey, which appears in the current issue of Family Planning Perspectives, the journal of the New York-based Alan Guttmacher Institute. The study, which was funded with a $1.8 million federal grant, also included questions about specific sexual practices and about

condom use. It was conducted to give health officials information on behaviors that could lead to transmission of HIV.

27 percent refused to participate

The nationwide survey was of 3,321 men aged 20 through 39, who were chosen randomly. Battelle touted its sampling method as evidence that the findings accurately represent all American men in that age range.

But media accounts of the survey did not mention that 27 percent of those contacted for the study refused to participate, and that three percent did not answer all the questions.

"That violates probability sampling principles beyond belief," Tripp said. "Probability samples can't stand a 5 percent variation, let alone a 30 percent variation."

Tripp said it's probably impossible to have a truly representative sample for a sexual-behavior survey. That the survey included only men aged 20 to 39 brings up another point. Many men do not realize they are gay or bisexual until after their 20s, or they may not act on their feelings until later.

Klepinger acknowledged that. "We're not claiming to predict who will be homosexual or who won't be," he said.

The media played up several recent sexual behavior surveys as proof that the percentages found in the Battelle survey are far closer to reality than the 10 percent figure long used by gay activists.

The NORC survey: 2.5 percent

A series of National Opinion Research Center studies conducted between 1988 and 1991 found that 2.5 percent of men and 0.8 percent of women had same-gender sex within the previous year, and that only 6 percent had ever had an adult homosexual experience. Media reports also referred to French and British studies that also found low rates of homosexual activity.

But those surveys contained some of the same potential flaws as the Battelle study. Although respondents were promised anonymity, all were contacted either in person or by telephone, meaning that the interviewer knew the subjects' names, addresses and phone numbers.

The Janus Report: 9 percent

In addition, most media outlets did not mention the Janus Report on Sexual Behavior, which was released earlier this year. That survey found that 22 percent of men and 17 percent of women had had at least one homosexual experience.

In addition, the study concluded that 9 percent of men and 5 percent women had had homosexual experiences more than just "occasionally," and that the same percentage of men and women identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual.

The Janus Report was the only survey to ask about sexual identity, rather than concentrating only on sexual practice. Like the other surveys, the Janus survey

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contacted participants at their homes and used a random sample to locate people. But, unlike the others, the Janus survey allowed participants to anonymously mail in their responses.

Kinsey's methods built trust

The famed Kinsey studies did not use random samples, and critics point out that the sample was almost entirely white, with most subjects from the Midwest and Northeast.

But Kinsey had and elaborate trust-building technique that Pomeroy said was more likely to elicit truthful information. Kinsey and his associates would gain the trust of a prominent member of a community or organization, and that person's involvement in the study would then lead others to talk with Kinsey. For example, Kinsey would convince a minister that the survey was important, and that he could be trusted to keep the interviews confidential. The minister would then relay the information to his congregation. In addition, Kinsey's interviewers were trained to act empathetically and never to express disapproval or surprise.

Kinsey found that 37 percent of men had had at least one adult homosexual experience and that 10 percent were exclusively homosexual during a three year period in their lives.

There's no way to know whether Kinsey's figures are correct, or whether any sex survey is accurate.

Common sense arithmetic

But, Kane said, simple common sense indicates that the Battelle figures are wrong. If the numbers are correct, and if, as organizers say, one million people attended the March on Washington, that would mean that half the nation's gays and lesbians would have been in Washington, she pointed

out.

Using the Park Service's contested figure of 300,000 would result in a turnout of one-sixth of all gays and lesbians in the U.S.

Those numbers would be ridiculous for any group of people, she said, but particularly for lesbians and gays, many of whom are closeted and would never be seen at public gay-oriented events.

Gay activists said the new survey would not cause long-term damage to the gay and lesbian rights movement.

"Short-term, it may cause problems because the far right will use this study to suggest that the lesbian and gay community does not have political influence and does not have the ability to swing elections," said Gregory King of the Human Rights Campaign Fund. "But most thinking people, upon reflection, will come to the conclusion that this survey is inaccurate.

"We're not going to allow it to have an effect," said Rick Garcia, executive director of the Illinois Federation for Human Rights, which is spearheading the lobbying effort for a statewide gay and lesbian rights bill. "Our argument is that whether we're 50 percent or 5 percent, or if there's only three of us, discrimination is wrong and we should be treated fairly under the law.

But the Traditional Values Coalition, the California group headed by the Rev. Lou Sheldon and perhaps the nation's leading anti-gay force, believes the survey will convince some politicians to oppose gay and lesbian rights.

"I think fence-sitting politicians will take a look at their support for the homosexual agenda," said Steve Pendergraft, deputy press secretary for the coalition. "The homosexual community by its own volition has based a lot of its credibility on the 10 percent number. The legitimacy of their political argument diminishes."

Reprinted with permission from the Windy City Times, Chicago.

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