1983 ISIS Survey

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The 1983 ISIS Survey was a survey conducted by the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality under the leadership of psychologist Paul Cameron, in an attempt to "expose" what Cameron felt were insidious going-ons among homosexuals. The survey asked a series of questions regarding sexual and social practices to 4340 people; only 65 of the people surveyed claimed to be homosexual/lesbian or bisexual. According to Cameron, his findings supported his hypothesis that homosexuality is a deviant lifestyle that encourages sexual perversion and crime; chief among his findings:

  • The average homosexual has between 20 and 106 sexual partners a year
  • Out of all the mass-murders in the US over the past seventeen years, homosexuals killed at least 68% of the victims.
  • Homosexuals perpetrate between a third and a half of all recorded child molestations.
  • 100% of all homosexuals have oral sex (which Cameron referred to in his notes as "tantamount to drinking blood")
  • 90% of all homosexuals regularly engage in anal sex
  • 92% of all homosexuals regularly insert their tongue into their partner's anus
  • 70% of all homosexuals regularly ingest feces (some re-prints of the study change this number to 17%)
  • 50% of all homosexuals regularly ingest semen
  • 41% of all homosexuals regularly insert their clenched fist into their partner's anus
  • 37% of all homosexuals engage in sado-masochism.
  • 29% of all homosexuals urinate on their partners.
  • The average life span of a homosexual is 39 years; fewer than 2% survive to the age of 65.
  • 33% of homosexuals aged 20 will contract AIDS by the time they are 32
  • 76% of homosexuals have one or more STDs

In regard to STDs, Cameron had a sub-section specifically dedicated to the prevalence of veneral disease in the gay community, claiming that his survey proved gay men were:

  • 14 times more likely than heterosexual men to contract syphilis
  • 3 times more likely than heterosexual men to contract gonorrhea
  • 3 times more likely than heterosexual men to contract genital warts
  • 8 times more likely than heterosexual men to contract a form of hepatitis
  • 3 times more likely than heterosexual men to get genital lice
  • 5 times more likely than heterosexual men to contract scabies
  • 5000 times more likely than heterosexual men to contract HIV/AIDS

In regard to lesbians, Cameron claimed that they were:

  • 19 times more likely than heterosexual women to contract syphilis
  • 2 times more likely than heterosexual women to contract genital warts
  • 4 times more likely than heterosexual women to contract scabies

Cameron insisted that the survey's results were accurate, and went on publishing them in pamphlets he began to hand out after moving to Washington, D.C. in 1984 and setting up the Family Research Institute. These pamphlets are often purchased by or given to right-wing Christian and “family values” groups, who regard the information as accurate. Numerous anti-homosexual groups use the ISIS Survey as evidence of the unhealthiness of homosexuality or to discredit homosexual rights movements. Most famously, the ISIS Survey is often quoted by the ChildCare Action Project and Fred Phelps, both of whom insist that the study is accurate and unbiased.

[edit] Charges of bias, invalid research methods and manipulating data

For the most part, mainstream scientists have paid very little attention to Cameron's studies, and thus extensive scientific analysis of the ISIS Survey have not been widely available. Dr. Gregory Herek, Ph.D., is among those who have analyzed Cameron's findings to any great extent. Among the errors Dr. Herek encountered were:

  • Mischaracterized sample: "Although the Cameron group has claimed that theirs was a "national" sample and have repeatedly used their data to make generalizations about the entire population, the initial sampling frame consisted only of 7 municipalities"
  • Unacceptably low response rate: "the Cameron group's results cannot be considered representative of even the specific municipalities because the vast majority of their sample did not complete the survey. "
  • Unreliable analyses due to small subsamples: "If the Cameron group's combined 1983-84 sample had been a random national sample (which it was not, as explained above), its size (N = 5,182 people) would have been large enough to permit estimates of population characteristics with only a small margin of error. Because their extremely low response rate rules out the possibility of making any population estimates on the basis of their data, however, this point is moot. "
  • Questionable validity: "It included a large number of questions that dealt with highly sensitive aspects of sexuality, many of them presented in an extremely complicated format. This procedure raises concerns about respondent fatigue and item difficulty."
  • Biased interview procedures: "The Cameron group's reports gave no information about how interviewers were trained or supervised in the field."
  • Researcher's bias publicized during data collection: "One of the principal challenges of social research is that the individuals who are being studied can become aware of the researcher's expectations or goals, which can alter their behavior. For this reason, researchers do not communicate their expectations or hypotheses in advance to research participants. Nor do they bias participants' responses by suggesting that a particular answer is more correct or desirable than others. Contrary to this well-established norm, Paul Cameron publicly disclosed the survey's goals and his own political agenda in the local newspaper of at least one surveyed city (Omaha) while data collection was in process."

Dr. Herek's conclusion was that "an empirical study manifesting even one of these six weaknesses would be considered seriously flawed. In combination, the multiple methodological problems evident in the Cameron group's surveys mean that their results cannot even be considered a valid description of the specific group of individuals who returned the survey questionnaire."

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