Is Bisexuality Spreading Like Wildfire?

By Ian Lawrence-Tourinho

August 19, 2015

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Photo credit: Unsplash/Jeswin Thomas

Is bisexuality spreading like wildfire across the United Kingdom? If aliens were to come to our planet and review the recent findings of YouGov, you could forgive them for thinking that. The past decades have seen a tidal wave of increased acceptance for LGBTI people across the Western world. While there remains much work to be done before we achieve full LGBTI equality, the attitudes of younger generations already show a marked shift towards greater acceptance of human sexual diversity — including their own.

Unsplash/Felipe Bustillo

According to a recent YouGov poll, HALF, a full 49% of young adults in Britain (ages 18-24), identify as something other than straight.  When given the opportunity to place themselves on the Kinsey Scale, 46% chose heterosexual, 6% chose homosexual, and another 43% placed themselves somewhere along the bisexual spectrum between the two. By contrast, only 23% of the overall British population identify as something other than straight.

These results demonstrate that young adults are not only more tolerant of LGBTI people than were previous generations, but they are also much more likely to see themselves as part of the LGBTI community. Bisexuality has long been the second most common sexual orientation, but the results from this study are still remarkable: Today, a full 19% of the overall population and a whopping 43% of young adults in the U.K. self-identify along the spectrum of bisexuality.

Of course, it is highly unlikely that the prevalence of bisexuality could have more than doubled in the biological makeup of a single generation. It is far more likely that shifting cultural attitudes are simply making it easier for people to be honest with themselves about their own sexual orientations. Maybe one day soon, the majority of bi people will finally be out to the most important people in their lives or — better yet — the entire world as bi.

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