Being "Something Else"

When the federal government released their data from a 2002 study of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), it contained a few surprises. Most obviously, for the first time since starting the survey in 1973, they finally admitted that men might have some impact on fertility, and included them as subjects.

The $16 million survey entitled "Sexual Behavior and Selected Health Measures: Men and Women 15-44 Years of Age, United States, 2002" by William D. Mosher, Ph.D., Anjani Chandra, Ph.D. and Jo Jones, Ph.D. was funded by nine departments within the federal government's Health & Human Services agency.

September 15, 2005 Advanced Data 362, however, while containing the 'usual suspects' of sexual orientation categories, such as "Heterosexual," "Homosexual," "Bisexual" and "Did Not Report," there was a new strange category I've never in my professional career come across:

"Something Else."

Almost 4% of both men and women scored themselves as "Something Else."

They were asked:

"Do you think of yourself as Heterosexual, Homosexual, Bisexual or Something Else?"

I had to learn more about this 'something else' category, so I went to their website and discovered that they were as curious about that category as I was.

Wait. Didn't they write this questions?

The category something else (other than heterosexual, homosexual, or bisexual) deserves further study using the NSFG and other surveys; it may reflect a lack of understanding of these terms by some respondents, a preference for other terms to describe sexual orientation, or both (figure 8).

Gosh, here was a great opportunity to come up with all kinds of creative reasons why someone might prefer to put down 'something else' when asked about one of the most politically manipulated sexual issue (neck and neck with abortion, no doubt.) For 16 million, I was hoping for more.

Frankly, I think you must have been living in a cave for the last 15 or more years not to have heard about laws that have been passed to protect gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people in housing, employment, education, etc. in States like Maine, California, Illinois, Minnesota, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and the District of Columbia, as well as the active attempts to overturn those laws. Or what about all of the 19 states who passed a amendment to place a constitutional ban on gay marriage?

Maybe the researchers are correct in assuming that 4% of respondents just weren't familiar with the term "homosexual," and could have used a bit of vernacular by adding the word "gay" in parenthesis next to the word "homosexual." After all, they did this when they asked about rectal sex using the folksy "butt" and then putting "anal sex" in parenthesis. Why not 'gay?'

If these questions weren't listed under the heading "sensitive" and delivered by an "audio-computer-assisted self-interviewing" (ACASI) technique, maybe the female (they are now all females because people are more comfortable with women) interviewers (who asked all the non-sensitive questions) might have been able to ask some willing subgroup what they meant. Darn it, they don't even have a careful breakdown describing anything else about these "Something Else-ers."

Of course, the study will make its own decisions about your sexual orientation if you are male and answer any of these questions affirmatively:

The next questions ask about sexual experience you may have had with another male. Have you ever done any of the following with another male?

It then goes on to list the "usual suspects" that separate out the heterosexuals from the rest: oral sex and (I'm quoting) "rectum or butt (anal sex)."

For women, however, no doubt the more 'delicate sex,' they omitted all of that 'hard core' stuff, preferring instead to demure:

"Have you ever had any sexual experience of any kind with another female?"

Don't blame the sociologist from Johns Hopkins, Dr. Sonenstein, (no stranger to vernacular language, herself, as you shall see) who wrote the questions. HER question was similar to those for men, and she didn't even know they weren't used until she was contacted by reporters.

"That's a bummer," she said. "It would have been nice to have the questions be comparable."

Let's set aside the question of whether a positive response to any of these choices indicates that the behaviors were engaged in consensually (no categories asked about this), or the well documented experiences of people "forgetting" about engaging in sexual activities if they consider them "unacceptable" (a point that has been well documented by HIV/AIDS researchers.) Putting together the right sexual behaviors to ask about sexual orientationis always going to be troublesome because human beings are so darn sexually creative. They can simply touch one another's bodies in a variety of places, or rub together and that can be "sex."
Of course, be forewarned that should you check off any of the boxes above, you may end up being labeled anyway.

As I've argued elsewhere, I like the second hypothetical they offered even better:

"respondents preferred other terms."

• What does the Male-to-Female transgendered person who is currently living with her former wife call herself?
• What if the whole concept of "sexual orientation" is a concept you consider as outdated as the term "male" or "female"?
• Does the man with an exclusive passion for black boots consider himself "something else"?
• What does the woman who prefers SM/BD play only with women check off?
• What about those of us who consider ourselves "Asexual"? Golly, even Alfred Kinsey included that.

And where do we put these "Something Else-ers" when its time to tally up? They were kept in their own category, and maybe that's for the best.

Personally, I'd like to start of movement of "Something Else-ers" devoted to the "Deconstruction or Devolution of Sex Orientation Categories." It can be extended to a write-in campaign of people adding "something else" in small print next to it the binary categories of "Male" and "Female."

Maybe responding to sexual orientation questions by checking either "Heterosexual" or "Something Else" will send a message: "I can't be categorized." I imagine extending it to those now neat little gender categories of "Male" and "Female."

Some of you are saying "Hey wait, there already is a broader term called "Queer" that's a label for anyone who doesn't think of themselves as conventionally sexual. That might be true, but our Government didn't consider that a catagory either as sexy or descriptive as "Something Else," so I say "Let's not fight City Hall" (or in this case the HHS).

Let's all join hands, heterosexuals and Queers alike who are sick of the neo-con's political obsession with affectional preference and join a "Something Else" movement.

You do think of yourself as 'something else,' don't you?

If not, you could be suffering from a reluctance to brag.

"I'm really Something Else!!!"

I can see the slogans and bumper stickers now...