Understanding Psychology (10th Ed)

 extramarital sex 
to be widespread, the current 
reality appears to be otherwise. According to surveys, 85% of married women and 
more than 75% of married men are faithful to their spouses. Furthermore, the median 
number of sex partners inside and outside of marriage since the age of 18 was six 
for men and two for women. Accompanying these numbers is a high, consistent 
degree of disapproval of extramarital sex, with nine of ten people saying that it is 
“always” or “almost always” wrong (Michael et al., 1994; Daines, 2006; Whisman & 
Snyder, 2007).
Homosexuality and Bisexuality
 Homosexuals 
are sexually attracted to members of their own sex, whereas
 bisexuals 
are sexually attracted to people of the same sex and the other sex. Many male homo-
sexuals prefer the term gay and female homosexuals prefer the term lesbian because 
they refer to a broader array of attitudes and lifestyles than the term homosexual , 
which focuses on the sexual act.

The number of people who choose same-sex sexual partners at one time or 

another is considerable. Estimates suggest that around 20–25% of males and about 
15% of females have had at least one gay or lesbian experience during adulthood. The 
exact number of people who identify themselves as exclusively homosexual has 
proved diffi cult to gauge; some estimates are as low as 1.1% and some as high as 10%. 
Most experts suggest that 5–10% of both men and women are exclusively gay or 
lesbian during extended periods of their lives (Hunt, 1974; Sells, 1994; Firestein, 1996). 
Although people often view homosexuality and heterosexuality as two com-
pletely distinct sexual orientations, the issue is not that simple. Pioneering sex 
researcher Alfred Kinsey acknowledged this when he considered sexual orientation 
along a scale or continuum with “exclusively homosexual” at one end and “exclu-
sively heterosexual” at the other. In the middle were people who showed both homo-
sexual and heterosexual behavior (see Figure 4). Kinsey’s approach suggests that