A new study published in the Journal of Sex Research shows that bisexuality — being attracted to or engaging in sexual behavior with people of both sexes — has tripled in the U.S. over the past three decades.
University of Portland undergraduate student Sophia Neuweiler initiated the research for her senior thesis. She teamed up with Martin Monto, a professor of sociology specializing in gender and sexuality, to analyze data from the General Social Survey (GSS).
Neuweiler and Monto found that between 1989 and 1994, 3.1% of the 6,354 respondents reported having both male and female sex partners since age 18. Between 2012 and 2018, that rate had climbed to 9.3% among the 6,609 survey takers. Moreover, during the pandemic-affected 2021 survey year, 9.6% of respondents reported partners of both sexes as adults.
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The GSS began asking respondents about their sexual orientation in 2004. Between then and 2010, 1.2% of those surveyed identified as bisexual. By 2021, the rate had nearly quadrupled, rising to 4.5%.
“Society draws lines around sexual behavior, and these lines, though often in dispute, may move over time,” the researchers wrote. “These changing norms appear to have affected the proportion of people who identify as bisexual and likely also affected actual sexual behavior.”