Sexual Orientation and Fear at Night: Gender Differences Among Sexual Minorities and Heterosexuals

Abstract

Using data from the 2000–2010 General Social Survey, a nationally representative sample of 5,086 adults in the United States, the authors examine sexual orientation and gender differences in reports of being afraid to walk alone at night. Results indicate that sexual minorities are significantly more likely to report fear at night than heterosexuals, and women are significantly more likely to report such fear than men. Further, our findings suggest that these sexual orientation and gender differences are due to sexual minority men being more likely than heterosexual men to report fear at night. Thus, the results of this study reveal that three groups—heterosexual women, sexual minority women, and sexual minority men—do not differ from one another in reporting fear, yet these groups are all more likely than heterosexual men to report fear at night. These findings give weight to the importance of investigating the intersection of sexual orientation and gender in individuals’ reports of fear.

Keywords:

• fear of crime
• intersectionality
• lesbians and gay men
• sexual minorities
• victimization

Acknowledgements

We thank Long Doan, Lisa Miller, as well as the anonymous Journal of Homosexuality reviewers for their feedback. This study was supported by a Ford Diversity Fellowship awarded to Eric Joy Denise.

Notes

1. The General Social Survey also asks respondents about the sex of their sex partners in the last 12 months and the number of female and male partners since their 18th birthday. With regard to fear at night, the results yielded using each of these measures for sexual orientation are similar to those presented in this article using sex of sex partners in the past 5 years (analyses available upon request).

2. The General Social Survey data notes respondents’ specific region in the United States: New England, Mid-Atlantic, East North Central, West North Central, South Atlantic, East South Central, West South Central, Mountain, and Pacific. Supplemental analyses (available upon request) using dichotomous variables for each region generally suggest that respondents in southern regions of the United States are more likely than those in the remainder of the country to report fear at night. As such, we present findings from analyses using a dichotomous indicator of residence in the U.S. South (yes = 1).

3. The results in our analyses are similar when measuring year of survey by dichotomous variables for each year; thus, we present the findings using year as a continuous variable.

4. In subsequent analyses (available upon request), we assessed the interaction effect for sexual minority status by race and ethnicity. These effects were nonsignificant.

5. Post-estimation tests for multicollinearity indicated that education may be collinear with other variables; however, no other variable exceeded a variance inflation score indicating significant collinearity. Supplemental analyses (available upon request) that exclude education yield similar patterns to those that include it.

6. The 2000–2010 General Social Survey (GSS) data do not include information on past experiences of crime and victimization. In supplemental analyses (available upon request) using 1991–1994 GSS data, we reestimated our models including controls for experiences of break-ins and armed robberies within the past year. The results yielded are generally similar to those we present from the 2000–2010 GSS: Heterosexual women, sexual minority men, and sexual minority women are significantly more likely to report fear at night than heterosexual men; however, the former three groups do not significantly differ from one another in reports of fear.