22

A claim I heard last night from a "chastity expert" was that about 50% of teens who self reported as homosexual ceased self reporting as homosexual sometime in their twenties.

Standing and saying "citation needed" to her would have been satisfying, but socially inappropriate. Does anyone recognize this as an actual study?

Sam I Am
  • 8,775
  • 7
  • 48
  • 71
Mike Elkins
  • 539
  • 3
  • 8
  • 2
    Do you have a name of the expert? It may be possible to find something she has written on the subject so we can understand where she is making the claim from. And I assume by stop you are saying they no longer engage in homosexual activities, and instead choose heterosexual partners. – Chad Dec 05 '11 at 21:40
  • 1
    I too would like the name of the expert, but I think the claim is clear enough (except maybe for "sometime in their twenties"). People who self-reported one thing self-report another, later. –  Dec 05 '11 at 22:00
  • 20
    Just the phrase "chastity expert" sets my skeptic senses tingling. I suspect that there is an agenda which has a long history of using plain old lies to promote themselves... – Larian LeQuella Dec 06 '11 at 03:33
  • 1
    @LarianLeQuella - there are plenty of people who are "chastity experts". Ranging from specific subsets of BDSM community to assorted spiritual people to nerds. Suspecting an agenda doesn't make one NOT capable of knowing what one is talking about. Anecdotally, there are plenty of ex-lesbian ex-Dommes who eventually went hetero-switch route. Doesn't mean they are enough to sway the statistics to 50%, but the demographis is not empty. – user5341 Dec 06 '11 at 11:39
  • 2
    @DVK I know, however if you read the rest of the question, the context starts to become very clear. This is most likely a religious group/expert with the anti-homosexuality agenda. I think Oddthinking's answer already skewers the 50% claim. – Larian LeQuella Dec 06 '11 at 11:42
  • 1
    @LarianLeQuella - while I upvoted the answer, you claim that "two weeks apart" check somehow even remotely is related (never mind "skewers") to what could very well be 10-year period makes me suspect that you are coming to this question with a perfect knowledge of what you need/want the answer to be without bothering to back up with research. You should re-read your Kinsey. – user5341 Dec 06 '11 at 11:47
  • 1
    @LarianLeQuella - BTW, not everyone who ever doubts any pro-homosexual claim has anti-homosexuality agenda. Some are really purely skeptical. Some are anti-homosexual-lobby for reasons having nothing to do with homosexuality (hint: plenty of people in US are fully supportive of Log Cabin Republicans yet fully distrustful of most other LGBT organizations. That's because they know the history of the latter). – user5341 Dec 06 '11 at 11:51
  • The "expert" speaking was a volunteer who will be talking to teens at a local parish, advocating chastity. This statement was made in the context of telling parents to deal calmly with their children (after all, maybe it's just a phase!). I doubt her facts and interpretation, but happen to agree that not punishing one's children in these situations makes sense. – Mike Elkins Dec 06 '11 at 17:34
  • "I suspect that there is an agenda which has a long history of using plain old lies to promote themselves". Now there's a phrase that sets my skeptic senses tingling. Judging someone without knowing anything about their arguments at all. – DJClayworth Dec 07 '11 at 21:03
  • there is a longitudinal study on US adolescents that would be perfect for this Q, but the data is restricted, and i have not yet found a study looking specifically at the issues that the Q poses - data/study : https://addhealth.cpc.unc.edu/ – bukwyrm Sep 21 '22 at 10:19

1 Answers1

4

Partial answer only, to help others give a better answer.

One question that is raised here is whether teens give accurate answers in surveys. One possible measure of inaccuracy is "test/retest" inconsistency. That is, if you ask the same person the same question again, do you get the same answer?

Test–Retest Reliability of Self-Reported Sexual Behavior, Sexual Orientation, and Psychosexual Milestones Among Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Youths Eric W. Schrimshaw, Margaret Rosario, Heino F. L. Meyer-Bahlburg and Alice A. Scharf-Matlick, ARCHIVES OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR, Volume 35, Number 2, 220-229, 2006. DOI: 10.1007/s10508-005-9006-2

They asked 64 youths (aged 14-21) recruited from GLB-focussed organisations about their sexual identity twice, two weeks apart, and compared the answers.

They found sexual identity had Cohen's Kappa value of 0.89, which is a strong indication that they got very similar results - but not identical ones.

Oddthinking
  • 140,378
  • 46
  • 548
  • 638
  • 8
    Translating to English - "Earth shattering news!!!: Teenagers change their minds!". This should qualify for IgNoble ;) +1 – user5341 Dec 06 '11 at 11:43
  • 1
    @DVK: Sort of right. If I could show that 50% of self-identifying GLB teenagers "changed their mind" after two weeks (or even if it was 25%), it would undermine the power of the original claim that they change their answers after 10 years. However, this study shows that a vast majority of the teenagers aren't as fickle with their answers about sexuality as one might expect. Nonetheless, some do (and we could probably come up with a dozen ideas about why.) – Oddthinking Dec 06 '11 at 11:54
  • what, there are other ideas needed aside from "Teens!" – user5341 Dec 06 '11 at 12:21
  • 5
    11 % change their mind in two weeks? Seems like quite a lot for a trait which is considered to change in years, if at all. Was there any check done to see if those teenagers take the survey seriously at all? It is long since I was a teenager, but if I remember it correctly, I was quite able to fill a questionary with crazy funny answers just for the heck of it. :) – Suma Dec 06 '11 at 12:22
  • 4
    Unfortunately, saying 11% changed their minds is too strong a statement to read from κ=0.89. This value isn't that simple a measure of agreement. From Wikipedia: "It is generally thought to be a more robust measure than simple percent agreement calculation since κ takes into account the agreement occurring by chance". – Oddthinking Dec 06 '11 at 12:49
  • 7
    This would actually be a decent answer, all by itself, if it explained what a value of 0.89 in the Cohen's Kappa scale was. And gave some benchmark examples to put it in context. – Jonathon Oct 22 '15 at 22:38
  • 1
    about cohens kappa: 1 would mean the first and the second answers overlap completetly, 0 would mean they only overlap as much as chance would suggest. 'Chance would suggest' here meaning that, i.e., if 80% answered 'cis' in the first round, it would be assumed (any) 80% would answer 'cis' in the second round - the chance overlap thus being assumed as 0.8x0.8=0.64 - so if 64% of answered 'cis' in the second round (all of them having answered thusly in the first), cohens kappa would be 0 (... if there only was 'cis' or none on the survey, getting complicated with more available answers) – bukwyrm Sep 21 '22 at 09:36
  • 1
    It would be good to know exactly *what* questions were asked and *how* they were asked. Surely "face-to-face interviews" aren't required in order to obtain one single-word answer. Something else must have been going on here too. ¶ Or consider if "identity" could include the concept of identifying with other people's situation (i.e. having sympathy and empathy for them) without actually being in that situation oneself. "*The mine workers are on strike because of their terrible working conditions; I've had some rather awful jobs myself, so I can identify with that.*" doesn't make one a miner. – Ray Butterworth Sep 21 '22 at 20:52
  • And what does "changed" mean? I'm thinking about edge cases--someone might be at the edge of gay/bi or bi/straight, or if the only options are gay/straight a bi person that's about equally split. Someone (especially a teen) answering one survey as a Kinsey 3 and another as a Kinsey 4 is very different than answering one as a Kinsey 0 and one as a Kinsey 6. – Loren Pechtel Sep 25 '22 at 03:54