For Women, Same-Sex Experimentation In College A Myth

A study (PDF) on sexual behavior, attraction and identity released earlier this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that women with at least a bachelor's degree are less likely to have had a same-sex experience than less-educated women.

Between 2006 and 2008, the study's authors asked 13,495 individuals aged 15 to 44 to answer a number of questions about their sexual habits and found that while 9.9 percent of college-educated women said they'd had a sexual experience with a female, 14 to 15 percent of women without a college degree said the same. According to the New York Times, only 1 percent of the 13 percent who reported having had same-sex encounters identified as homosexual, and only 4 percent as bisexual.

The report's findings call into question the popular notion that college campuses are a place for young women to explore their sexuality. Officer of the Council on Contemporary Families and University of Illinois at Chicago professor Barbara Risman says the Lesbian-Until-Graduation (LUG) stereotype has long been exaggerated. "I always thought the LUG phenomenon was overblown, in the context of it being erotically titillating for young men," she told the Times.

The study shows that although educational differences in same sex experience for males were less pronounced than for females, men with some college were nearly 3 percent more likely than men with no college to have had a sexual encounter with another male, and that women are almost twice as likely as men to have had same-sex encounters.

Read the full report here.

What do you think of the study's findings? Are LUGs a myth, or is there some truth to the old stereotype? Share your thoughts in the comments section.