Attachment styles, by gender identity
In my Big Kink Survey, I asked respondents their gender.
I also asked about relationship attachment style. The exact wording people got was:
Here’s the results:
Sample size was 25399 cis males, 9540 cis females, 1309 enby (amab), 2458 enby (afab), 1080 transwomen and 1103 transmen.
I’m deeply amused by how many cis males reported ‘secure’ as their attachment style - whether this is actually true, or whether cis males are experiencing some disproportionate social pressure to think of their relationship style as ‘fine’, both of those theories are fascinating. Cis males do report lower anxiety across the board - in my survey, 25.2% of cis males reported having anxiety (in a separate question), compared to 54.7% of cis females, 50.9% of transwomen, 70.2% of transmen, 50% of amab enbies and 69.9% of afab enbies. I know ‘having anxiety’ is not the same thing as anxious-attachment, but it might point in an interesting direction - cis men, or at least the ones taking my survey, seem to report being chiller.
I’m surprised by how low and even avoidant-attachment is across the board! I feel like this sort of implies that anxious/disorganized and secure attachment are the two interesting metrics here.
Notable is also transwomen leading the pack for anxious attachment. Are higher anxiety levels associated in some brain-chemistry way with being trans, or does being trans affect relationships in a way that encourages anxious-attachment?
Also interesting is that afab enby entries look almost identical to transmen entries, but transwoman respondents have significantly more anxious-attachment than amab enby entries. I’m not sure what to make of this - whatever is governing attachment styles or gender identification seems to be affecting sexes differently. I’ll probably dive deeper into this in the future.
I don’t actually know how valid the relationship styles measurement is, but it doesn’t have to be valid for people’s self-identification to be interesting.
My November 3 Response:
Totally agree with your initial statement. "True" might be the key word here. I think your intuition is truer than the responses. I'm a pretty secure man, but even I KNOW that my happy place is being disconnected. Does that mean I don't want commitment? I guess that all depends on our definition of commitment and whether I trust the person I'm making commitments with, doesn't it?
Aella wrote:
"I’m deeply amused by how many cis males reported ‘secure’ as their attachment style - whether this is actually true, or whether cis males are experiencing some disproportionate social pressure to think of their relationship style as ‘fine’, both of those theories are fascinating. *Cis males do report lower anxiety across the board* - in my survey, 25.2% of cis males reported having anxiety (in a separate question), compared to 54.7% of cis females, 50.9% of transwomen, 70.2% of transmen, 50% of amab enbies and 69.9% of afab enbies. I know ‘having anxiety’ is not the same thing as anxious-attachment, but it might point in an interesting direction - cis men, or at least the ones taking my survey, seem to report being chiller."
My February 8 Response:
The comment about "disproportionate social pressure" has a hint of grammatical bias. Farbeit for me to dictate methodology and scientific rigor. I know you don't attempt to conform your studies to standard processes overmuch. But, as you say, your amusement is showing. As for what you feel is amusing, I think the male mind has a tendency to lock step with the male-pack. This male society is very hierarchical and there is security within hierarchies. I'm sure some 19th or 20th century social scientist, mystic or Freud disciple has said virtually the same thing.