A new study recently published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior shows that more and more people in the U.S. are open to same-sex experiences. The research, according to TIME, analyzed survey data from approximately 30,000 Americans from 1973 to 2014. They were asked about their sexual behavior and outlook on same-sex experiences, and guess what? Same-sex hookups have doubled since 1990.
The number of Americans who had had sex with someone of the same sex increased between 1990 and 2014, for both men (4.5 percent in 1990 to 8.2 percent in 2014) and women (3.6 percent in 1990 to 8.7 percent in 2014). Generation Me author and San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge noted the increases do not mean they are a result of people who identify as gay or lesbian, but of people who have had sex with people of both sexes.
“What we’re seeing is this movement toward more sexual freedom,” says Twenge. “There’s more freedom for people to do what they want without following the traditional, often now seen as outdated, social rules about who you’re supposed to have sex with and when.”
Folks in the Midwest and South showed the largest growth in same-sex experiences, while cities in the East and West proved to have steadier same-sex experience rates.
As mentioned earlier, said survey also looked at what people thought about same-sex relations. Only 11 percent of Americans thought it was no biggie for same-sex adults to engage in sexual relations, circa 1973. But by 2014, roughly 49 percent of people surveyed (and 63 percent of Millennials) stated there was nothing wrong with same-sex copulation.
“These more traditional rules around same-sex behavior have faded away,” says Twenge.