School of Social Science, University of Queensland, Michie Building (#9), St Lucia Campus, St Lucia, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia.
Institute for Social Science Research, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia.
Arch Sex Behav. 2021 Nov;50(8):3459-3477. doi: 10.1007/s10508-021-02000-0. Epub 2021 May 18.
In recent decades, the ways in which sexual minorities identify have changed dramatically. In response, social and health surveys have begun offering a greater range of response options within sexual orientation questions-for example, intermediate categories for "mainly heterosexual" and "mainly lesbian/gay" alongside the more common response options of "heterosexual," "bisexual," and "lesbian/gay." Recent studies indicate that women who identify as "mainly heterosexual" report poorer health, greater health-risk behaviors, and higher rates of victimization than women identifying as "exclusively heterosexual." However, we know very little about the demographic profile of women who choose the "mainly heterosexual" identity label compared to the adjacent "exclusively heterosexual" or "bisexual" labels or about changes over time in the prevalence and correlates of "mainly heterosexual" identification. This study addressed these knowledge gaps by modeling unique, high-quality survey data from three national cohorts of Australian women (Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health, 2000-2017, n = 76,930 observations). Consistent with the facilitative environments model, we document stark cross-cohort increases in the percentage of Australian women identifying as "mainly heterosexual"-from ∼1% of those born in 1946-1951 to ∼26% of those born in 1989-1995, coinciding with comparable declines in the percentage of women identifying as "exclusively heterosexual." We also found evidence of cohort differences in the associations between key sociodemographic factors-such as age, education, and socioeconomic status-and the likelihood of women identifying as "mainly heterosexual." Finally, our results indicate that same-sex sexual attractions were more strongly associated with "mainly heterosexual" identification than was same-sex sexual behavior.
近几十年来，性少数群体的认同方式发生了巨大变化。作为回应，社会和健康调查开始在性取向问题中提供更多的回答选项，例如，在“主要异性恋”和“主要同性恋/双性恋”的中间类别之外，还有更常见的“异性恋”、“双性恋”和“同性恋/双性恋”。最近的研究表明，自称“主要异性恋”的女性报告的健康状况较差，健康风险行为更多，受害率也高于自称“绝对异性恋”的女性。然而，我们对选择“主要异性恋”身份标签的女性的人口统计特征知之甚少，与相邻的“绝对异性恋”或“双性恋”标签相比，或者与“主要异性恋”认同的流行率和相关性随时间的变化相比。这项研究通过对三个澳大利亚女性的全国队列（澳大利亚女性健康纵向研究，2000-2017 年，n=76930 次观察）的独特、高质量调查数据进行建模，解决了这些知识空白。与促进环境模型一致，我们记录了澳大利亚女性中自称“主要异性恋”的人数明显增加，从 1946-1951 年出生的约 1%增加到 1989-1995 年出生的约 26%，同时，自称“绝对异性恋”的女性比例也相应下降。我们还发现了队列差异的证据，即在关键社会人口因素（如年龄、教育和社会经济地位）与女性自称“主要异性恋”的可能性之间的关联。最后，我们的结果表明，同性性吸引与“主要异性恋”的认同比同性性行为更密切相关。
