Betydningen av seksuell erfaring, tiltrekning og identitet for ...

and a sexual arousal dimension. The question of sexual arousal was included
in the battery of sexual behaviour items. In addition, we asked ‘Have you in
your teenage years ever been in love with/had a crush on a boy/girl?’, again
related to partners of both sexes. 6 Possible answers were ‘Yes’, ‘Not sure’
and ‘No’.
There was no categorisation of ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’; hetero- and
homosexual behaviour was treated as equal and same-sex partners as a
matter of course. The usefulness of this wording was confirmed by way of
pilot-studies and group interviews with young people. Students felt that this
way of asking about sexual experiences with either sex – leaving out labels
like heterosexual or homosexual – was ‘democratic’ and ‘socially inclusive’.
The respondents were grouped into three categories according to the
nature of their homosexual experiences. One group included all students
with neither homosexual experiences nor attractions (94 per cent of the
males and 73 per cent of the females). The second group included students
who had only experienced homosexual French kissing, regardless of their
homosexual attractions (2 per cent in males and 18 per cent in females). The
third group included students reporting one or more homosexual experiences
other than French kissing, i.e. fondling, petting, oral sex, intercourse (4 per
cent in males and 9 per cent in females). Two indexes of accumulated
heterosexual and homosexual experiences respectively were computed by
adding one point to the index for each type of experience reported.
About one fourth of the respondents had missing answers to the samesex
partner questions (Female resp.: 17.5%-19.2%, Male resp.: 26.5%-
27.1%), while missing responses on same-sex romantic attractions were
lower (Female resp.: 11.8%, Male resp.: 12.4%). Respondents who also
omitted to answer questions on the other-sex partner questions were coded
as missing on homosexual behaviour (Female resp.: 1.3%, Male resp.:
1.6%). This rate of missing responses was on the same level as that of other
general questions. The rest were coded as having no experience of
homosexual behaviour.
6 The question on emotional attractions included the Norwegian word ‘forelsket’ which
is somewhat softer than ‘being in love’, perhaps closer to ‘having a crush’
– Homo? – 139