It's like the Where's Waldo of gay sex.

It's interesting that only one out of the lot of them was (at least within the last 6 months) gay. All the rest with same-sex relations were bisexual (at least within the last 6 months).

And those are the few bisexuals. Because the gays... Well those are a complete graph basically.

I was just about to point that out!

Would you consider that a romantic or sexual relation? Or both?

It's the midwest, so probably a lot in hiding

I kept looking at that too. It's crazy to me that there are only 2 cycles in the graph and one is the big accidental one. It honestly makes me think that either something must be wrong with the data, or it's reflective of some deep principle of math or sexuality (e.g. that people won't fuck around within their close social grouping nearly as readily as they will with people on the outskirts of it).

They'd have to lie about who they slept with, and I expect the other person might have something to say about that if it was not true.

I wonder if they verified each claim from both sides.

Edit: it's a scientific paper, so there's no need to wonder!

In fig. 2, and in all discussions presented here, all romantic and sexual relationship nominations linking students are included, whether or not the nomination from i to j was reciprocated with a nomination from j to i.

It's a 90s high school, somewhat rural and religious, according to the article. Either there really were few homosexual relationships there, or the students didn't want to reveal them.

You think?

I think people feel liberated to say they're gay these days, so there are much more people claiming to be gay than in previous decades. On the other hand, there's still a lot of homophobes and also quite some biphobes around, so there's probably a lot of bi people that present as hetero or even gay.

I'd assume that most people are at least a little bi, and that they'll try that out in high school even if they later decide they won't pursue it.

The line does not necessarily mean they had sex.

There are 63 dedicated couples, nothing more

If you look at this a little closer, you'll notice that there aren't actually that many highly connected nodes.
The big structure is mostly composed of single link chains.

Sexual or romantic partners.

I “dated” a classmate for a month at 14 until he wanted me to sit on his lap and I broke up with him because I felt like I’d be too heavy but didn’t want to admit that, so I didn’t know how to talk to him about it.

If you’d asked me at 14, if he was a romantic partner, on god I’d have said yes.

Well it is a 20 year old study. Attitudes towards LGBT people were much less accepting back then. The participants in this study are now between the ages of 34-38 most likely. Probably a lot of people in the closet and keeping their relationships discreet or not having relationships, and some that haven't realised that they're gay yet.

If you did this study today, there would be a lot more gay sex, but probably less than we'd guess still. LGBT people are still a minority after all.