The Shrinking Ten Percent

By PRISCILLA PAINTON

Even by American standards of interest-group celebrity, gay men have loomed large in the nation's consciousness, surfacing at Roseanne's side on prime time television, as superheroes in DC Comics and on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers fuss over showering habits in the barracks. But last week, as they prepared for the largest march on Washington in six years, gay men became the - first put-upon minority in the country to have struggled toward a moment of national definition only to find themselves suddenly redefined. Here they were, about to sit down face to face with the President in the Oval Office, when a major national survey abruptly shrank their population to a tenth of what it was once touted to be.

The study, one of the most thorough reports on male sexual behavior ever, found that only 1% of the 3,321 men surveyed said they considered themselves exclusively homosexual. The survey, by researchers at the Battelle Human Affairs Research Centers in Seattle, was designed to study how many men engage in the kinds of sexual behavior that put them at greater risk of developing AIDS. But its scientific verdict (men are still having too much unprotected sex) was overwhelmed by a political one. "It shows politicians they don't need to be worried about 1% of the population," says conservative leader Phyllis Schlafly, whose son confirmed last year that he is gay. Some gay activists are concerned that she might actually be right. "Bill Clinton and Jesse Helms worry about 10% of the population," says ACT UP co-founder Larry Kramer. "They don't worry about 1%. This will give Bill Clinton a chance to welch on promises."

In seeking to win political clout and public acceptance, gays and their leaders have long sought refuge in numbers -- specifically in the 10% figure for homosexuality that Alfred Kinsey turned up in his 1948 study of human sexuality. Since then, the famous 10% has slipped into treatises and talk shows, and not just because there were few other studies to refute it. It was also good propaganda. "It became part of our vocabulary," says Kramer. "Democracy is all about proving you have the numbers. The more numbers you can prove you have, the more likely you'll get your due."

That 10% has remained a political talisman for the gay community was clear last week when several leaders refused to give it up. The San Francisco-based magazine 10 Percent, a national quarterly devoted to gay culture, made clear it had no intention of changing its name. "I'm not a mathematician," says editor Hank Donat, "but by their reasoning, there are about 2.5 million gay men in America. I guess we're all living in California."

Many gay leaders rushed to discredit the 1% figure, pointing out that people are reluctant to discuss their most intimate sexual nature with a clipboard- bearing stranger, even in surveys like this one where the interviews were conducted face to face in the subject's home and with a guarantee of confidentiality. "People have good reason not to be honest about their homosexual behavior," says Frances Kunreuther, the executive director of the Hetrick-Martin Institute, the nation's largest social service agency for gay youth, "especially in a country where same-sex relations are illegal in 24 states and the civil rights of gay people are protected in only eight."

Several critics pointed out that the survey was limited to men between 20 and 39, a period in which many adults have still not come to terms with their sexual orientation. And some gay leaders argued that the survey coldly compiled sexual acts, asking the subjects to count their partners and the number of times they had had vaginal, oral and anal sex, without dwelling on the more complex and elusive question of sexual identity. "Sexual orientation is a lot more than sexual behavior. It is about how we fall in love," says Kunreuther.

For some scientists the survey demonstrated just how little is known about male sexuality and how much is prone to misinterpretation. "As far as I'm concerned, there are no good numbers for homosexuality," says Paul Abramson, a UCLA psychology professor. Even the survey's findings on heterosexual activity, such as the frequency of condom use and the number of sexual partners, probably reflect some denial or exaggeration by those interviewed. Sometimes the problem is semantic: researchers have learned that they must be particularly explicit in asking questions about anal intercourse. "Perhaps 20% of people we surveyed substantially misunderstand what anal sex is," says Tom Smith, who directs sexuality studies at the University of Chicago.

Some researchers, however, had already become skeptical of the ubiquitous 10% figure for homosexuality. In their book Kinsey, Sex and Fraud, Dr. J. Gordon Muir and his two co-authors pointed out that 1 out of 4 of Kinsey's male subjects were former or present prisoners, a high proportion were sex offenders, and many were recruited from his own lectures. Moreover, his original claim was misunderstood: all Kinsey ever said was that 10% of men between 16 and 55 are more or less exclusively homosexual for periods of up to three years.

Recent surveys from France, Britain, Canada, Norway and Denmark all point to numbers lower than 10% and tend to come out in the 1%-to-4% range. One of the most comprehensive surveys of sex in America ever done will be released next year by University of Chicago researchers. So far, it shows that of the 1,500 men surveyed, only 2% had engaged in sex with another man in the previous 12 months.

With this kind of evidence mounting, it is easy to see why some gay leaders and their allies would prefer to change the subject."One percent, 10%," says Congressman Henry Waxman. "Discrimination is discrimination." The lower statistic could undercut the gay movement at a time when, emboldened by a sympathetic President, they are squaring off with conservatives across the country on issues ranging from sodomy laws to gays in the military. In Washington, Congress has been considering an AIDS research bill and legislation that would stiffen penalties for violent hate crimes against gays and other minorities. Outside the Beltway, homosexuals are engaged in everything from pushing for spousal rights to fending off challenges from the California-based Traditional Values Coalition, which has targeted 12 states for anti-gay ballot initiatives.

Already gay leaders are on the defensive, wondering in particular if they can continue to count on a hefty budget for aids research, which along with breast cancer is the only disease to have received more money in the Clinton Administration's National Institutes of Health budget. Critics have been grumbling that AIDS absorbs 10% of the NIH outlay. Now gay activists predict more Congressmen will echo Congressman Robert Dornan, who said of gays last week, "They've lost their edge on the floor. This collapse in their figures will influence the aids debate significantly."

This kind of political brush-off, however, does not take into account how both gay and congressional politics work. Because they are highly mobilized and tend to have more discretionary income, gays have an impact on elections that is disproportionate to their number. They raised a whopping $3.5 million for Clinton. In Massachusetts, the campaign staff of Republican Governor William Weld credited gays, who mobilized against his Democratic opponent John Silber, with helping him get elected in 1990. This power has even greater effect on the congressional level. "No member of Congress -- zero -- votes based on some abstract poll number," says Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who is gay. "You base your vote on the reaction you get in your own district or state."

The one point of agreement last week was that both the scientists and the - politicians still know very little about Americans' private predilections. Part of the reason so much fiction has persisted is that scientists have not succeeded in securing federal funding to do much research. In the late 1980s, Congress approved two national surveys of sexual behavior, one for adults and the other for teens. But conservatives, led by Senator Jesse Helms and Representative William Dannemeyer, killed the measures. They argued that the studies would give homosexuality more standing than it deserves.

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With reporting by Wendy Cole and Christine Gorman/New York, Laurence I. Barrett and Dick Thompson/Washington