Comparing Sociosexual Orientation of Heterosexual and Homosexual Women: A Matching Approach

The construct of sociosexuality reflects individual differences in willingness to engage in uncommitted sexual relations. Only few studies investigated differences in sociosexual orientation between homosexual and heterosexual women and the findings were rather inconsistent, reporting either nearly identical levels of sociosexuality for both groups, differences limited only to certain aspects of sociosexuality, or differences in sociosexual orientation overall. A major reason that may account for these inconsistent results represent methodological difficulties due to confounding variables not controlled for. In other words, comparisons of homosexual and heterosexual women’s sociosexuality could be hampered by person variables that differ systematically between the two groups, such as educational level, religiosity, age, and relationship status. To achieve a high level of cross-sample validity, the current study applied a matching approach, comparing 323 heterosexual and 323 homosexual women that were matched prior for possible confounding variables. To provide a better understanding of sociosexual orientation, differences in sociosexual behavior, attitude toward, and desire for uncommitted casual sex as three aspects of sociosexual orientation were assessed by the Sociosexual Orientation Inventory-Revised. Although homosexual women were significantly more unrestricted in their total SOI score, analyses at the facet level revealed, that sociosexual desire seemed to be driving this effect, whereas sociosexual attitude and behavior showed no differences between the two groups. Moreover, structural equation modeling at the latent level confirmed a less restricted sociosexual desire in homosexual than in heterosexual women. To the best of our knowledge, the present study was the first to directly control for potential confounding variables using a matching approach to examine differences in the three facets of sociosexuality.