Research Participation Request: Measuring Sexual and Romantic Orientations

[Snao Cone]

This request is from Kris Chessin at San Francisco State University

 

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Hello, 
 
My name is Kris Chessin and I am a Master's student at San Francisco State University. For my thesis, I am conducting a research study to develop a new way to develop a new scale for quantitatively measuring both sexual orientation and romantic orientation on separate dimensions. 
 
Participation is voluntary and includes a series of online scales and questionnaires. You will be asked questions about your identity, personality, religious beliefs, sexual and romantic preferences (including having no sexual or romantic preferences at all). I recognize that not all the surveys are not ace/queer or trans/NB/GNC friendly, but I need to use them to compare my new measure to older measures.  
 

This survey should take you no more than 30 minutes. 

 
To participate, you need to meet *ALL* of the following criteria:
    - Age 18 years or older 
    - English as a primary language 
    - Reside in the U.S. 
 
Also, please do *NOT* take this survey on a mobile device.  
 
If you would like to be compensated for this study you may go through Amazon's Mechanical Turk (MTurk) through by searching "Sex and Love" in the hits search bar (if no results occur please try again a few minutes later).  

I recognize MTurk is may not be very trans/NB/GNC friendly, but currently it is one of the better anonymous payment platforms.   
 

If you do not have an MTurk ID or do not wish to go through MTurk but still wish to contribute to the study please use the link below to take you directly to the study.

https://acsurvey.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1yUHSXcxaQOQfCR 

 
Please feel to contact me at kchessin@mail.sfsu.edu or my advisor Dr. Charlotte Tate at ctate2@sfsu.edu. (Please see below for an about the researcher section). 

 
 
This project (protocol number X17-95) has been approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of San Francisco State University. 
 
Thank you for your time, 

Kris Chessin 

 

About the Researchers

Kris Chessin is a second-year graduate student in the Social Psychology Program at San Francisco State University. Kris received his Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Biology from Alma College in 2016. Kris is a demisexual, trans man, of color. His research focuses on sex, sexuality, and gender. 

Dr. Charlotte Tate is a mixed ethnicity, butch-presenting lesbian, and openly trans woman. She publishes under "Charlotte Chuck/y Tate" to have female visibility, transgender visibility, and butch lesbian visibility simultaneously. She is currently an Associate Professor at San Francisco State University and Coordinator of the Social Psychology Master's of Arts Degree. 

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This research request has been approved by the Research Approval Board for advertising on AVEN.

 

Snao Cone

Resource and Education Director

(Note: I'm acting on behalf of our vacant Dedicated Research Contact position)

[LeChat]

I was surprised by the sudden questions regarding a person's religion, religious beliefs, etc. In other studies I've seen and completed, regarding sexual orientation, religion wasn't asked about at all. So, I don't understand what that has to do with a person's sexuality or sexual orientation, as people without a religion or religious beliefs still can have spiritual feelings, too, or feel a desire to help or be kind to others, just like those who practice a religion: they just don't call it their "religion" or "religious beliefs."

 

Plus, studies have shown that most Americans are religious and practice a religion, so wouldn't that possibly skew the study into appearing a certain way, as in "most religious people in our survey were kind, extroverted people"? It's like, of course the survey would say that because religious people outnumber those who aren't.

 

It feels like, "Are they assuming atheists are uncaring, cold, aloof, etc. or trying to make their survey give results so that that appears to be the case?" I've heard of this stereotype. In other words, if there aren't a lot of atheist responses, and say that the atheists' responses showed that most of them were quiet introverts, then isn't it possible that the study might unfairly and wrongly make them appear to be negative or in a negative light, as a group?

 

I wish the survey had a comment section, like some surveys have, so that I could've explained some of my answers, to prevent possible misunderstandings or misinterpretations.

[cosmosredshift7]

my dude i know that wording a question different ways is used to make sure that your results are more exact/correct, but my ADHD is having a hell of a time keeping up with answering correctly

[FallenAngel9799]

Damn, I could have taken this test, but I reside in the Philippines.

 

I am 18 (born Sept. 17, 1999), can speak English, Tagalog, and Hiligaynon, all with equal fluency, but I don't reside in the US.

 

Anyways, I wish you good tidings in this endeavor!

[anisotrophic]

As NB, I find it really uncomfortable attempting classify myself according to het/hom and whether I'm attracted to "same" or "opposite" sex. Sorry, I ended up not completing this.

[Old Maid Librarian]

Too many questions regarding sexual preferences without "none of the above" as a choice.  I left a lot of pages blank because there was no correct answer.

 

The S&M section was educational - I thought I knew what S&M involved, but there were choices I never imagined and hope to forget now that I know about them.

 

 

[daveb]

On 4/30/2018 at 5:30 PM, InquisitivePhilosopher said:

I was surprised by the sudden questions regarding a person's religion, religious beliefs, etc.

It does say

Quote

You will be asked questions about your identity, personality, religious beliefs, sexual and romantic preferences (including having no sexual or romantic preferences at all)

 

23 minutes ago, Old Maid said:

Too many questions regarding sexual preferences without "none of the above" as a choice. 

but also says

Quote

You will be asked questions about your identity, personality, religious beliefs, sexual and romantic preferences (including having no sexual or romantic preferences at all)

 

[Biblioromantic]

12 hours ago, Old Maid said:

Too many questions regarding sexual preferences without "none of the above" as a choice.  I left a lot of pages blank because there was no correct answer.

Yes, exactly this, only for sexual identity. There were two questions in particular. One asked if I'm either heterosexual or homosexual with no other options; I'm neither. One asked me my degree of heterosexuality vs homosexuality; I'm still neither of those even though you asked it a different way.

 

Then there was that whole True/False section about heterosexuality vs homosexuality; the whole section was dumb and didn't apply to asexuals at all. It needed a major revision of the vocabulary used (sexual/romantic attraction, "in love," etc.) The last question of that section--"I do not consider myself homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual. I have never had any attraction to, desire for, or sexual contact with members of my same or opposite sex."--is probably an attempt to appeal to asexuals, but it excludes all asexuals who have ever had sexual contact with anyone. There are lots of asexuals who have at one time or another had sexual contact of some kind with another person. Not to mention all the gray-aces out there this also doesn't apply to.

 

I find this to be just another example of erasure, which disconcerts me as the survey was supposedly vetted by a group of elected AVENites. And the survey was written by a self-proclaimed demisexual! If you're going to ask a group of asexuals about sexuality, you'd better include a way for us to say we're asexual. SMH

 

On another note, I found quite a few simple spelling errors throughout the survey. Did the survey writer (and the faculty member overseeing the project) not know how to use a spell-checker? Seems like something you'd want to do if you're looking to actually be seen as a professional. I mean, if you're going to take this whole business of asking people serious questions and then try to make reasonable deductions from their responses, I think you should at least go to the effort of using a spell-checker, especially if you're a grad student. This was a poor showing by both the graduate program and the graduate student. SMH again.

 

In the end I just gave up. Not worth my time.