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Abstract
Trends in reporting of same-gender sex are assessed using data from the 1988-2002
General Social Surveys (Ns = 9,487 males and 12,336 females). Analyses indicate that
the reported prevalence of female-female sexual contact increased substantially and
monotonically across twentieth-century birth cohorts, rising from 1.6 percent (Standard
error [SE] = 0.60) for the cohort of U.S. women born prior to 1920 to 6.9 percent
(SE = 0.81) for women born in 1970 and afterward. Increases in the reported prevalence
of female-female contacts also occurred within the 1990s. These trends persist when
statistical controls are introduced for changes in attitudes toward same-gender sexual
behavior. No parallel trend is observed in the reporting of male-male sexual contacts
during adulthood, although the proportion of U.S. men reporting such contacts in the
past year and in the past five years increased during the 1990s.