I have no complaints about the about the researchers; and the study itself is fine for what it is. But what it is, is an opportunistic analysis of data that was collected as part of a larger study not focused on sexual orientation.
The headline numbers people quote is that lesbian and bisexual women report a lifetime prevalence of intimate parter violence of 44% and 61% respectively, compared to 28% for heterosexual women. According to the paper, the lower number for heterosexual women is statistically significant.
However, if you scroll down 9 pages you find that 89.5% of bisexual and 98.7% of heterosexual women victima report exclusively male perpetrators. In contrast, only 67.4% if lesbian victims report exclusively female perpetrators.
In principle you could try to untangle these numbers. But, according to the researchers, there is simply not enough data to do so in a statistically rigorous manner.
And that is assuming we take the survey results at face value; which is always a dangerous assumption. There is likely a significant reporting bias; and likely some form of sampling bias.
This is a topic that certainly deserves more research. But that is expensive and as far as I can tell has not been adaquettly done.
Sauce?
Statistical incompetence and a profoundly credulous worldview.
There is a 2010 study by the CDC on the subject.
https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/12362
I have no complaints about the about the researchers; and the study itself is fine for what it is. But what it is, is an opportunistic analysis of data that was collected as part of a larger study not focused on sexual orientation.
The headline numbers people quote is that lesbian and bisexual women report a lifetime prevalence of intimate parter violence of 44% and 61% respectively, compared to 28% for heterosexual women. According to the paper, the lower number for heterosexual women is statistically significant.
However, if you scroll down 9 pages you find that 89.5% of bisexual and 98.7% of heterosexual women victima report exclusively male perpetrators. In contrast, only 67.4% if lesbian victims report exclusively female perpetrators.
In principle you could try to untangle these numbers. But, according to the researchers, there is simply not enough data to do so in a statistically rigorous manner.
And that is assuming we take the survey results at face value; which is always a dangerous assumption. There is likely a significant reporting bias; and likely some form of sampling bias.
This is a topic that certainly deserves more research. But that is expensive and as far as I can tell has not been adaquettly done.