the hamburg institute for sexual research conducted a survey over the sexual behavior of young people in 1970, and repeated it in 1990. whereas in 1970 18% of the boys aged 16 and 17 reported to have had at least one same-sex sexual experience, the number had dropped to 2% by 1990. ""ever since homosexuality became publicly argued to be an innate sexual orientation, boys' fear of being seen as gay has, if anything, increased,"" the director of the institute, volkmar sigusch, suggested in a 1998 article for a german medical journal.