Hello, 60 percent

So last week, this splashy headline came out that said “More than half of women are attracted to other women!” Hallelujah! Praise lesbian Jesus! All our dry spells are over. We have a better than 50-50 change of scoring with that cute brunette at the bar. Go get ‘em, tigers.

I mean, who wouldn’t be attracted to other women?

Women look like this.

And like this.

Also this.

Or this.

Other times that.

And even a little of this and that.

Of course, the reality is this news probably will not improve our ability to pick up hot straight chicks. The original report came from the UK’s Daily Mail, a publication notorious for loving sensational headlines and fuzzy math. That article about a Boise State study by a professor Elizabeth Morgan that was published in the Journal of Sex Research said that “60 percent (of heterosexual women) were sexually attracted to other women; 45 percent had kissed a woman and 50 per cent had fantasies about the same sex.” But, again, it’s the Daily Mail. So, you know, please feel free to chug your salt shaker.

Doing a little research of my own, I did indeed find a real study published in the Journal of Sex Research by a Elizabeth M. Morgan, a Boise State psychology professor, that looks at sexual orientation questioning among heterosexual women ages 18 to 23. The number of women in the study was different than the Daily Mail’s numbers (study: 333, Daily Mail: 484) and findings seem a little different. The real study found that “67 percent of exclusively heterosexual respondents indicated having thought about and/or questioned their sexual orientation.” Of those who have questioned their orientation, the questioning behavior broke down as “unelaborated questioning (19 percent), other-sex experiences (16 percent), exposure to sexual minorities (26 percent), assessment of same-sex attraction (48 percent) and evaluations of same-sex behavior (26 percent).”

Now I can’t be 100 percent sure these are the same studies, because of the differences in sample sizes and report percentages. (Prof. Morgan’s full article is only available for purchase and while I want to prove a point, and I don’t really care so much that I feel like shelling out $34.) And, even if it is the same study, the fairly small participant pool means I wouldn’t go making a bunch of universal proclamations based on it alone.

But, still, it adds research to that long-assumed truth that women are more sexually fluid than men. Or, at the very least, women are more willing and comfortable with being honest about their sexual fluidity. Or maybe we should just chalk it up to college. Besides learning how to shotgun a beer and sleep with your eyes open, students pretty much major in sexual experimentation during those years of academic excellence. This is also where that beer shotgunning thing can come in handy.

In the end, we don’t really need a study (or a fake study) to tell us that while we may not be able to hook up with all these some 60 percent of straight gal, we know they’re at least taking a look at us ladies. How could they not? I mean, look at us.

UPDATE: Wow, ask the universe and it delivers. I now am in possession of seven (SEVEN) copies of Prof. Morgan’s report. So looks like I’ll have some light reading to do this week. Thank you, thank you, kittens. You are, continually, the best.