Like the offenders vs. children, the heterosexual offenders vs. minors display no salient characteristics in their homosexual experience. Nearly 40 per cent had had physical sexual contact with another male since puberty, six percentage points more than the figure reported by the control group. Thirty-six per cent had such experience outside of prison—a somewhat small proportion, but not unusually small. Nearly one quarter had had more than incidental homosexual experience in or out of prison, as opposed to the control group’s 15 per cent.
With regard to accumulative incidence, the number of individuals with homosexual experience by a given age, the offenders vs. minors always occupy low-intermediate positions in the rank-orders. The median offender had his first postpubertal homosexual contact at age 15.6 years, a customary age for this experience.
The proportions of single offenders vs. minors involved in homosexuality within a given five-year age-period are always moderate or even somewhat small in comparison to other groups, ranging from about one seventh to one quarter. Only a very small number of married offenders vs. minors engaged in homosexual activity; the proportions involved in any age-period range from 0 to 8 per cent. In fact, in only three age-periods (21-25, 26-30, 36-40) have we any men reporting homosexual behavior. Our data concerning postmarital life indicate that the age-specific incidence of homosexual activity among these separated, divorced, or widowed offenders is similarly very low.
The frequency of homosexual experience, calculated as the number of physical contacts per year outside of prison, is moderate, and less than the frequency reported by the control group (3.4) despite the fact that the offenders vs. minors exceed the controls in most other measures of homosexual activity. Homosexual activity accounted for only a moderate proportion of the total sexual outlet of the unmarried, being always less than that of the control group.
The median frequency of homosexual activity among unmarried males with homosexual experience was somewhat high in the various age-periods from puberty to age twenty-five; thereafter we have too few never-married males to permit frequency calculations. These men ranked fourth to fifth in all three age-periods. The median number of partners—four—with whom these men had contact outside of prison is a moderate number in comparison to other groups. Nearly one third confined themselves to one partner; somewhat fewer had two to five; about one fifth had six to 20; and only 15 per cent had more than 20 partners. None of these proportions are unusually large or small. A study of the youngest partner with whom the offender had homosexual contact after he was eighteen reveals that only one man reported a boy under twelve years old; none had as their youngest partners boys aged twelve to fifteen, and three listed males aged sixteen to seventeen— three constituting the relatively large figure of 17 per cent.
Despite their moderate amount of homosexual behavior, the heterosexual offenders vs. minors were relatively harsh in their disapproval of male homosexuality, ranking fourth in this respect. Two thirds disapproved as opposed to only 7 per cent who approved—only one group (the heterosexual offenders vs. adults, significantly enough) contained fewer men who approved.
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