Straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender. At the end of the day, what's the difference?

According to the future of America, the gap between heterosexuality and homosexuality is narrowing. A recent poll conducted by YouGov has revealed that the number of young people around the world who exclusively identify themselves as either heterosexual or homosexual is rapidly declining.

Researchers from YouGov asked respondents to rate their sexuality on the Kinsey scale, also known as the Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale. The Kinsey scale was developed by Alfred Kinsey back in 1948 to help plot an individual’s sexuality. Results are based on a 0 to 6 scale, 0 meaning “exclusively heterosexual,” 3 meaning equally heterosexual and homosexual, and 6 meaning “exclusively homosexual.”

“It is a characteristic of the human mind that tries to dichotomize in its classification of phenomena,” Kinsey explained in Sexual Behavior of the Human Female. “Sexual behavior is either normal or abnormal, socially acceptable or unacceptable, heterosexual or homosexual; and many persons do not want to believe that there are gradations in these matters from one to the other extreme.”

Although 78 percent of Americans reported that they are completely heterosexual, 12 percent of this group also admitted to having a sexual experience with someone of the same sex. Another four percent of American adults said they were completely homosexual and 16 percent said they fell somewhere in between. Among those who said they fell in between, 10 percent said they are more heterosexual, three percent said they are exactly in the middle, and the remaining three percent said they are more homosexual.

It seems, however, that younger Americans have a harder time pigeonholing their sexuality compared to adults. Only 66 percent of Americans under the age of 30 said they are either completely heterosexual or completely homosexual. A total of 29 percent said they were somewhere in between compared to 24 percent of Americans between the ages of 30 and 44 and eight percent of those over the age of 45.

A similar poll conducted by YouGov found that more young people from across the pond refuse to put a definitive title on their sexuality. While 72 percent of British adults said they are completely heterosexual and four percent said they are completely homosexual, 19 percent place themselves in the bisexual categories. Like younger Americans, younger Brits were less likely to put themselves on one side of the spectrum or the other.

Forty-six percent of people in the UK between the ages of 18 and 24 said they were completely heterosexual and six percent said they were completely homosexual. Forty-three percent said they fell somewhere in between the exclusive categories. An overwhelming majority of people in the completely heterosexual and completely homosexual groups agreed that sexual orientation is not a binary choice representing a more open-minded view of sexuality.