Harumph. That Safire bloke must be a militant species-ist.
What about the 23% who prefer the company of a sexy hamster?
I hereby petition the bureau to replace POSSLQ with AASSLQ: Animal of
the Appropriate Sex Sharing Living Quarters.
And there are those 18% of necrophiliac-americans whose civil rights
must be defended. I mean, who are we to to judge those who happen to
be turned on by a nice firm corpse? I hereby cancel the previous
motion and demand that the bureau replace POSSLQ with TASSLQ: Thing
of the Appropriate Sex Sharing Living Quarters.
Darn, there are about 34% whose sex life involves non-gendered things,
such as the Usenet alt.binaries.pictures hierarchy and a big pillow.
And 15% have no "living quarters" as such but have to survive on the
street, under a bridge, wherever. I hereby waive the previous demand
and order the bureau to replace POSSLQ with a noun sufficiently
generic to offend no-one: "stuff".
-- Rob
PS: In answer to the question that started this, Myriam is indeed my
SBSLQ now not just a g.f. (Sexy Babe Sharing Living Quarters).
PPS: Where did your 10% come from? If I recall correctly (always a
doubtful proposition), in anonymized surveys roughly 97% of
American men claim to be heterosexual, 1.5% homosexual and 1.5%
bisexual.