When you ask people their sexual identity, as in heterosexual, gay or lesbian, bisexual or other, almost everybody thinks of themselves as heterosexual. But it’s a slightly different story when you ask people about their sexual experience. 

Men’s sexual experience (life-long) by gender of partner

Only had sex with women:           91.2%

Had sex with men and women:    5.6%

Only had sex with men:            0.9%

Haven’t had sex:                             2.3%

Women’s sexual experience (life-long) by gender of partner

Only had sex with men:                 83.7%

Had sex with men and women:    13.2%

Only had sex with women:              0.3%

Haven’t had sex:                              2.6%

So 5.6% of men have had sex with both men and women, with is much greater than the number who identify as gay, or as bisexual. But fully 13.2% of women have had sex with women and men.

Just 0.9% of men have only had sex with men. That’s not many, but it’s three times as many as women who’ve only had sex with women (0.3%). 

So there’s quite a difference between sexual orientation as an identity, and what people have actually done, sexually.

Still, these are  experiences over a lifetime, so they include men and women who identify as het but occasionally have sex with people of their own sex, but also people who experimented as an adolescent but now only have opposite-sex partners.

And right now I have to work on less interesting things.