Nearly six in 10 Gen Z’ers report being something other than straight, new research suggests.
The findings come from a survey conducted on over 3,000 people from 71 countries who use the dating app Feeld.
The site is dedicated to ‘alternative relationship models’ like polyamory and swinging, so may not reflect the broader population.
But Justin Lehmiller, a social psychologist at Indiana University and lead author of the paper, said it showed how Gen Z has an ‘openness to exploring more fluid ways of being.’
About 59 percent of Gen Z reported identifying as something other than straight, the poll found
LGBTQ+ identification in the US is growing, with 7.6 percent of all American adults now identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or some other sexual orientation besides heterosexual.
Dating apps are enormously popular in the US – about 30 percent of adults have used one to find a partner.
Feeld doesn’t report their number of active users, but from 2021 to 2022, the app grew by 65 percent, the New York Times reported and currently has about 72,600 reviews on the app store.
Bumble, a dating app founded in the same year, has about 1.6million ratings, for comparison.
Regardless of the popularity, the researchers from Kinsey Institute at Indiana, who have been studying human sexuality for more than 75 years, narrowed in on its data to measure current sexual preferences.
Polling its members, they found that 59 percent of Gen Z users, those born between 1995-2004, report a sexual identity other than heterosexual.
There are 19 other options provided on the app, ranging from the familiar, like bisexual and homosexual, to the unfamiliar, like Objectumsexual, the sexual desire for inanimate objects.
This is a greater amount of non-straight people than previous reports have found, the study authors wrote.
For example, a 2023 Gallup poll reported 22.3 percent of American Gen Z considered themselves LGBTQ+.
This discrepancy could be because the people who already use Feeld are more sexually open than the general population.
Dr Lehmiller said: ‘What is also striking is how, compared to the national average, the Feeld community seems to be a lot more open to exploring, defining, and redefining who they really are’.
This fluidity was on display in the polling too. 18 percent of 18 to 30 year old’s said they had had a change in sexual identity since joining the app.
It seems that the app curates a user base for just that. The company’s about page said users include people seeking: ‘ethical non-monogamy, polyamory, casual sex, kink, swinging, and other alternative relationship models and sexual preferences.’
In addition to partner preferences, 55 percent of Gen Z reported discovering a new kink while on the app, compared to 49 percent of Millennials, 39 percent of Gen X and 33 percent of Baby Boomers.
This is consistent with larger trends in the younger generations preferences – Dr Lehmillers older research has found than over half of the youngest adult generation reported having BDSM fantasies.
The report also found that Gen Z was more interested in monogamy and having less frequent sex than Millennials or Gen X.
In fact, 81 percent of this age group reported fantasizing about having a life long partner, despite options like polyamory becoming more popular on the whole.
