Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation describes the gender or genders to which an individual feels sexually attracted. The term sexual preference is often used interchangeably, though this term is more broad and includes personal attitudes in between the three most common general categories defined as sexual orientations:


 * Heterosexuality (also known as straight) describes exclusive sexual attraction to persons of different gender(s); usually exclusive female attraction to men and vice versa.
 * Bisexuality is sexual attraction to two or more genders, or the same and different gender(s).
 * Homosexuality (also described as gay) describes exclusive attraction to persons of the same gender
 * Pansexuality (also known as omnisexuality) describes attraction to all genders, or without reference to gender
 * Asexuality describes a general lack of sexual attraction. Asexuality is often thought of as a spectrum, with orientations on that spectrum including grey-asexuality, meaning experiencing very rare sexual attraction, and demisexuality, experiencing sexual attraction only after a close emotional bond is formed.

Orientation surveys

 * An informal 2002 poll used in The Sociology of Furry Fandom, a paper by David J. Rust hosted at The Darken Hollow, showed 25% heterosexual, 19% homosexual, and 48% bisexual out of 360 peopled polled. Rust concluded that "Truth be told, there are many more homosexual members of the fandom than in general society."
 * A informal 2007 University of California at Davis study found that 37.3% of respondents were bisexual, 32.7% heterosexual, 25.5% homosexual, and 8% were uncertain.
 * A informal 2006 FAOD poll showed 25% heterosexual, 20% homosexual, and 55% bisexual (out of 44 polled)
 * A Furtopia poll (open 2003 to 2007) stated that 53.4% were heterosexual, 15.5% gay, and 31.1% bisexual out of 885 people polled.
 * A poll by Alex Osaki reported that 42.75% were heterosexual, 16.86% were homosexual, 35.29% were bisexual, and 4.71% self-identified as neither.
 * Research by Dr. Kathy Gerbasi at Anthrocon 2009 found a significant difference between male and female responses; males were distributed across the Kinsey scale while the females responding only chose from "exclusively heterosexual" to "equally heterosexual and homosexual".

No polls past 2010 indicate the sexual orientation mark up of the fandom at large.