Document Type
Article
Date
2017
Keywords
Same-sex sexuality, LGBT, marriage, marital duration, mixed-orientation marriage, bisexuality
Language
English
Disciplines
Demography, Population, and Ecology | Family, Life Course, and Society | Gender and Sexuality | Sociology
Description/Abstract
Recent research has focused on the once-married and associations between various aspects of same-sex sexuality (i.e., desire/attraction, behavior and identity) and divorce from a different-sex spouse. In this paper, we theorize that same-sex sexuality could be associated with either shorter or longer marital duration, and we use data from the 2011-2013 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) to examine the associations between three aspects of same-sex sexuality and marital duration among those who married and divorced once (N=617). Among the once-married/divorced, same-sex sexuality substantially reduces marital duration by approximately 18-24 months, on average, net of other variables. Supplemental analyses indicate that these associations do not differ by sex/gender but do differ in nuanced ways for individuals who are bisexually attracted (identified) compared to those who report, respectively, same-sex only or different-sex only attraction (heterosexual, bisexual and lesbian/gay identity). Between-group differences in age at marriage exert a substantial influence on the associations between same-sex sexuality and marital duration documented in the supplemental analyses of bisexuality. We discuss our findings in relation to the extant literature, the limitations of available data, and directions for future research.
ISSN
1549-0955
Recommended Citation
Hoy, Aaron and London, Andrew, "Same-Sex Sexuality and the Duration of First Different-Sex Marriages" (2017). Sociology - All Scholarship. 8.
https://surface.syr.edu/soc/8
accessible pdf
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Included in
Demography, Population, and Ecology Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons
Additional Information
Special Collection 7 -- The Demography of Sexuality (http://populationreview.com/special-collection-7-demography-of-sexuality/)
This article is part of Project Muse. It can also be found at: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/678211/pdf
This version is licensed CCBY.