Turns out a whole lot of straight people actually feel same-sex attraction, new study finds

A new study has revealed that a lot of self-identified heterosexuals actually feel same-sex attraction. It’s just the latest proof that, despite our breathless fascination with labels, human sexuality rarely boils down to a straight-gay binary.

The study, published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, examined data from 2,900 self-identified heterosexuals in Spain between the ages of 18 and 40 who had participated in a 2017 online survey about sexual orientation and behavior. About 70 percent of the participants were women and 30 percent were men.

The survey asked participants if they ever considered same-sex individuals to be good-looking, if they ever dreamed or fantasized about same-sex sexual encounters, or if they ever had same-sex sexual intercourse (including touching and masturbation). The survey also asked participants about their discomfort with their own sexual orientations and the prospect of engaging in same-sex sexual activity.

Lead researcher Juan E. Nebot-Garcia and his colleagues found that 31.5% of women and 13.2% of men reported feeling attracted to same-sex individuals. Women were more likely than men to find same-sex people attractive and were more open than men to engage in same-sex sexual activity — though men and women felt most open to kissing rather than oral or anal sex.

Researchers also found that if heterosexual people of either sex find same-sex individuals physically attractive, they were also over 10 times more likely than non-attracted heterosexuals to feel discomfort with their own sexual orientations. If a man desired a same-sex sexual encounter, he was more than 55 times more likely to feel discomfort with his own sexual orientation.

Researchers said this discomfort is likely because same-sex attraction and sexual desire create “discordant experiences,” “uncertainty,” and “ambiguity” about a heterosexual person’s self-concept. Heterosexual people may also fear social backlash if they identify or act in any way other than heterosexuality.

Interestingly, women, older people, people with higher levels of education, and those who had already had erotic same-sex experiences reported lower levels of discomfort about their own sexual orientations. Heterosexual women also expressed a greater tolerance and more positive attitudes toward homosexuality than heterosexual men.

There’s a lot to unpack in the findings. Foremost, even though the study took place in Spain, it shows something that has long been true in the U.S.: Many people still self-identify as heterosexual, even if they’ve experienced desire for or sex with same-sex partners.

Also, it’s not surprising that more heterosexual women than heterosexual men reported having had same-sex attraction and sexual desires. That’s likely because our hetero-male-dominated society tolerates same-sex female sexual encounters and is more comfortable seeing them in public and media, since women kissing turns straight guys on and seems non-threatening to them.

The study’s authors noted that, even though the Spanish government has passed progressive LGBTQ+ rights legislation, anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination persists in society. This discrimination, researchers said, affects the sexual development of heterosexuals who experience any attraction or desire outside of heteronormativity (that is, outside of strict societal expectations of “normal” heterosexuality).

Put another way, part of the reason heterosexuals feel so scared about having same-sex attraction or sexual desires is that they’re afraid society will treat them like sh*t for being gay or bi. As always, queerphobia, not queerness, is the real problem.