For women, like men, almost none of those who identify as heterosexual have had only female partners, but 10% say they have had at least one same-sex partner, five-times the rate reported by men. Unsurprisingly, almost none of the men identifying as heterosexual have had only male sexual partners and only 2% say they have had even one male sexual partner (Table 1). How common is it for heterosexual men and women to have sex with same-sex sexual partners? Here we focus on a few specific questions: Detailed tables, along with how we generated our measures, are in the Appendix at the end of this post.

We’re using data from the 2002, 2006-2010, and 2011-2013 National Survey of Family Growth for men and women 15 to 44 years of age. If you know which sexual orientation people identify with, how much does that tell you about whether they have sex with women, men, or both? How similar or different are the links between identity and behavior for women and men? Building on our post from last June, “ Women’s sexual orientation and sexual behavior: How well do they match?” we update the analysis of women to include more recent data and add an analysis of data on men.