Sex in Australia: Homosexual experience and recent homosexual encounters

Abstract Objective To describe the prevalence and features of homosexual experience and recent homosexual encounters among a representative sample of Australian adults. MethodsComputer‐assisted telephone interviews were completed by a representative sample of 10,173 men and 9,134 women aged 16–59 years from all States and Territories. The overall response rate was 73.1% (69.4% among men and 77.6% among women). Results : Overall, 8.6% of women and 5.9% of men reported some homosexual sexual experience in their lives (p<0.001); these figures fell to 5.7% and 5.0% respectively (p=0.106) when non‐genital sexual experience was excluded. 1.9% of men and 1.5% of women reported homosexual experience in the past year. Men who reported homosexual experience reported more same‐sex partners than did women (means 31.6 and 3.2, p