SURVEY TITLE: National Health and Social Life Survey

ACRONYM: NHSLS

SPONSOR: National Opinion Research Center with funding from Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation of Menlo Park, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the New York Community Trust, and the American Foundation for AIDS Research.

SURVEY PURPOSE: The NHSLS was designed to be a representative and current survey of
adult sexual behavior in the United States. The goals of the study were to describe the distribution of sexual practices in the general population, and to examine the changes in these practices under current conditions.

LOCATION SAMPLED: United States.

YEARS SEXUAL ORIENTATION DATA COLLECTED: 1992.

SAMPLE SIZE: The NHSLS used an area probability sample of 3,432 respondents

METHOD OF SEXUAL ORIENTATION DATA COLLECTION: Self-Completed Questionnaire

SEXUAL ORIENTATION QUESTIONS:
IDENTITY QUESTION:
([S]ection-[Q]uestion)
S8-Q49: Do you think of yourself as… 1) heterosexual 2)homosexual 3) bisexual 4) or something else? (Specify) 5) NORMAL/STRAIGHT 6) don’t know”

BEHAVIOR QUESTIONS:
S2-Q2: Spouse/cohabitant questions ask for gender of spouse/cohabitant

S6-Q1-2/6: “Now thinking about the time since your 18th birthday and during the time before you started living with [(S)pouse/(C)ohabitant], how many people, including men and women, did you begin having sex with, even if only one time?” (If one) “Was this partner a male or female?” (If two or more) “How many of these partners were... (a) male? (b) female?”

S6-Q11-12/16: Same format as Q1-2/6, initial question reads: “Now, I am going to ask you some questions about any other sexual partners you may have had during the time you were living with (1st S/C)…”

S6-Q21-22/26: Same format as Q11-12/16; initial question substitutes: “between the time you were living with (1st S/C) and (2nd S/C)” for “during the time…1st S/C”

S8-Q40: “Now I would like to ask you some questions about sexual experiences with (SAME SEX AS R[espondent]; males/females) after you were 12 or 13, that is, after puberty. How old were you the first time that you had sex with a [male/female]?”

SAQ NO. 2, Q4/7: “Have your sex partners in the last {12 months/5 years} been… exclusively
male; both male and female; female?

SAQ NO. 2, Q8/9: “Now thinking about the time since your 18th birthday (including the recent past you’ve already told us about) how many {female/male} partners have you had sex with?”

DESIRE QUESTIONS:
S7-Q4: On a scale of 1 to 4, where 1 is very appealing and 4 is not at all appealing, how would you rate each of these activities:….b) having sex with someone of the same sex.

S8-Q47: “FEMALE R ONLY: In general, you are sexually attracted to 1) only men 2) mostly men 3) both men and women 4) mostly women 5) only women”

S8-Q48: Same as Q47, but for male respondents

RESULTS:  

• Edward O. Laumann, John H. Gagnon, Robert T. Michael, and Stuart Michaels. The Social organization of sexuality in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Laumann et al. found that 8.6% of women and 10.1% of men reported any adult same-gender sexuality.  Of the women reporting some same-gender sexuality, 88% reported same-gender sexual desire, 41% reported some same-gender sexual behavior, and 16% reported a lesbian or gay identity.  Of the men, reporting some same-gender sexuality, 75% reported same-gender sexual desire, 52% reported some same-gender sexual behavior, and 27% reported a gay identity.