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Personality and lipid level differences associated with homosexual and bisexual identity in men

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Abstract

Self-identified homosexual (n =30), bisexual (n =29), and heterosexual (n =31) men were compared on measures of gender-typical behavior, sex role, ego strength, and lipid levels. Homosexual men differed significantly from the heterosexual men on the gender-typical behavior and feminine sex-role measure (both in adulthood and in childhood), and several trends and significant differences were found on the biochemical measures of lipid levels (especially when 7 obese men were removed from the analyses). As a rule, the bisexual men were different from the heterosexual men on the above measures, but were indistinguishable from the homosexual men. Bisexuals differed from both of the other two groups, however, by scoring lower on the ego strength scale and by reporting themselves to be more often troubled, lonely, and depressed. We caution that the lipid analyses were made on single blood samples and require an extended replication; however, we report the data because of their possible theoretical interest and because they replicate work of 20 years ago.

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Supported primarily by NIMH grant 32170 to Dr. Pillard and an Honors Committee grant from the Alumni Fund, Boston University, to Dr. Snyder, then a student; also by grant IP50 MH 45294 and R01 MH 43298 (Dr. Weinrich).

We acknowledge the generous services of Diagnostic Medical Laboratory, Inc., Branford, Connecticut.

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Snyder, P.J., Weinrich, J.D. & Pillard, R.C. Personality and lipid level differences associated with homosexual and bisexual identity in men. Arch Sex Behav 23, 433–451 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01541408

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