Science Study on Gay Males' Sexual Role Preferences

St._Andalou

First off, this article is from 2009 and the study itself is even older: so I apologize in advance if it's been posted before.

The article in full is here. A team of scientists studied a group of 205 on their sexual role (that is, active, passive, or versatile) and their correlation, if any, to personality traits.

I find this part interesting:

(3) Tops were more likely than both bottoms and versatiles to reject a gay self-identity and to have had sex with a woman in the past three months. They also manifested higher internalized homophobia—essentially the degree of self-loathing linked to their homosexual desires.

(4) Versatiles seem to enjoy better psychological health. Hart and his coauthors speculate that this may be due to their greater sexual sensation seeking, lower erotophobia (fear of sex), and greater comfort with a variety of roles and activities.

It also has an interesting note on relationships and sexual preferences:

...the authors note that prospective gay male couples might want to weigh this issue of sex role preferences seriously before committing to anything longterm. From a sexual point of view, there are obvious logistical problems of two tops or two bottoms being in a monogamous relationship. But since these sexual role preferences tend to reflect other behavioral traits (such as tops being more aggressive and assertive than bottoms), “such relationships also might be more likely to encounter conflict quicker than relationships between complementary self-labels.”

Any views on this? I've dated three men who were "only active" and the description of traits above seemed to fit perfectly with two of them, but I know it varies from person to person.

chicken fingers

Sample size is 205 people, that is tiny.
Too small of a group of people to extrapolate anything really meaningful from the data.

St._Andalou

chicken fingers wrote: »

Sample size is 205 people, that is tiny.
Too small of a group of people to extrapolate anything really meaningful from the data.

I disagree. Tests such as these are always limited by budget in regards to the sample size, but it wasn't carried out by a team of quacks so I think we can give some thought to the findings if anyone finds them interesting.

Dr. Baltar

Agreed that 205 is a very small group to survey.
However, I'll bite! As a top, I would agree with a lot that's said there. I'm not "gay" I don't even like "bi" - I'm just me.
As for the internalised homophobia? I don't agree with that at all. I have a dislike for the scene and drag queens ect. but I am defiantely not homophobic and self loathing.

Sir Ophiuchus

I don't know, for a sufficiently randomised sample that's actually a pretty decent sample size. If you get too large a sample size you start finding significant correlations where none exist.

Seems correct to me, though simplistic.

A lemon

I took a quick look at the actual study in question. It's about the sexual behavior of HIV positive men who have sex with men. 24% of the sample were found in public sex environments, several of the participants were also seeing women. This was all within the same geographical area, if I'm not mistaken. The goal of the study isn't to make sweeping generalizations of tops and the results should probably only be considered within their appropriate context. The author says:

"It is possible that many tops prefer to only take the insertive role in sexual relations to avoid identifying themselves as gay. However, the cross-sectional design of the present study precludes any ability to determine causality regarding attitudes about one's homosexuality and sexual behaviour."

It's interesting and all, but like, is anyone really surprised that people who have issues with being attracted to men are less likely to take it up the ass? I don't doubt it's true. They're probably less likely to do a lot things, like setting foot in a gay bar, or visiting Panti's blog. The issue I have with these studies is that each time they're passed on through the interwebz, the details get more and more diluted, and before you know it some pea-brain starts thinking that Dr. Baltar, for example, is a conflicted self-loathing soul ('cos he's a top and Dr. Trevor Hart said so!)

So yeah, check out the link (if you have access) - the study itself isn't simplistic, but the conclusions that some people probably take from it are...

wonderfulname

Wow, I've always tended to trust Scientific American to a degree, but the fact that they drew conclusions relative to HIV and HIV awareness in that article and failed to mention that the sample group was made up of HIV positive men is pretty god awful.

I'll definitely be having a nose through that report in a few days when I have access to it again, purely to see how accurate that article is.

As for the sample size, its large enough to take note of.

grah88

The two studies in this article are ridiculous. The study by Trevor Hart at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta was done with 205 subjects, how is that a decent sample of homosexuals? And the second by by anthropologist Mathew McIntyre was done with a laughable 44 subjects. How can anyone take this seriously?

St._Andalou

A lemon wrote: »

The issue I have with these studies is that each time they're passed on through the interwebz, the details get more and more diluted, and before you know it some pea-brain starts thinking that Dr. Baltar, for example, is a conflicted self-loathing soul ('cos he's a top and Dr. Trevor Hart said so!)

So yeah, check out the link (if you have access) - the study itself isn't simplistic, but the conclusions that some people probably take from it are...

No one is a pea-brain, as you maturely put it, if that's a dig at me for starting the thread.

In fact, you seem to be the one oversimplifying the findings. It says, "Tops are more likely..." and "Versatiles seem to..." not "All tops are..." or "All versatiles are..." We're perfectly capable of looking at results and not jumping to ridiculous conclusions.

St._Andalou

Plus with regards to sexual roles only, I don't see how HIV-status affects that or has any sway over it.

A lemon

St._Andalou wrote: »

No one is a pea-brain, as you maturely put it, if that's a dig at me for starting the thread.

In fact, you seem to be the one oversimplifying the findings. It says, "Tops are more likely..." and "Versatiles seem to..." not "All tops are..." or "All versatiles are..." We're perfectly capable of looking at results and not jumping to ridiculous conclusions.

Wooooaaaah! What the hell? Talk about jumping to ridiculous conclusions. No I wasn't calling you a pea-brain. As far as I'm aware nobody on this thread is interpreting "more likely" is an absolute sense. I was just pointing out that it's best to read the study in it's entirety - because there are certainly people out there that could form misconceptions. What I'm saying is that people should keep in mind that correlation does not imply causation. Chillax.

As for only HIV positive men being the same as a random selection of gays - I dunno...what are the factors that are correlated with high HIV rates? Because they automatically become part of the study and might damage the ability of the author to make an inference about the general population. Just a thought. Don't take what I say so seriously though, I just like to analyse these things.

St._Andalou

A lemon wrote: »

Wooooaaaah! What the hell? Talk about jumping to ridiculous conclusions. No I wasn't calling you a pea-brain. As far as I'm aware nobody on this thread is interpreting "more likely" is an absolute sense. I was just pointing out that it's best to read the study in it's entirety - because there are certainly people out there that could form misconceptions. What I'm saying is that people should keep in mind that correlation does not imply causation. Chillax.

OK. Apologies for misinterpreting your post.

azezil

St._Andalou wrote: »

(3) Tops were more likely than both bottoms and versatiles to reject a gay self-identity and to have had sex with a woman in the past three months.

Just in regards to this point in particular. While I can see the logical behind this assertion my experience has been somewhat different with guys who've had sex with women within the past 3 months, they've always been bottom for me.

I started out as a bottom purely because I was too shy to be top, but I'd never say that all bottoms are shy just because I was :P

As for the study only being done on HIV positive guys, again based on my own experience I believe that does taint the results.