Researchers Announce Confirmation That Bisexuality is Real
Researchers have announced the first scientifically and objectively verified proof that bisexuality -- a contested sexual orientation even among the GLBT community -- actually does exist and is not simply a label to which those too timid to declare themselves as gay retreat, the New York Times reported in an Aug. 22 article.
Researchers for a new study looked at how physically aroused subjects became when viewing sexually explicit material, the article said, as well as asking the subjects to report on whether or not they experienced sexual excitation at seeing intimate images involving both males and females.
Northwestern University investigators carried out the new study. A similar study in 2005 by researchers at that same Chicago-area university suggested that bisexuality might not be a real classification for patterns of human sexual response, the Times noted. In response, bisexuals of both genders expressed their displeasure.
Bisexual individuals have long been subject to skepticism -- and, some say, discrimination -- from the heterosexual and homosexual worlds alike. Some gays disdain bisexuals,. dismissing them as gays and lesbians who lack courage to embrace their homosexuality.
But bisexuals insist, much as gays have historically done, that their responses are genuine and the result of their innate sexual identities, rather than being a choice or a political label. As such, bisexuals say that they routinely experience erotic and romantic attraction to members of both genders.
The new study differed significantly in several respects from the 2005 study, the Times noted. In 2005, research subjects were located through gay magazines and "alternative publications," with the participants self-identifying according to a standardized questionnaire asking them to report whether they were gay, straight, or bi.
The new study went to online resources for bisexuals. The study also mandated that people interested in participating in the study must have had sexual relationships with at least two people of each gender, and must also have been in relationships lasting three months or more with a man and a woman. All of the participants were male.
The subjects were then shown sexually explicit films that depicted encounters involving both men and women. They were asked to disclose which videos they found arousing, but their genitals were also monitored for signs of sexual response to the videos. The study included self-described heterosexuals and homosexuals, as well as bisexuals.
The men claiming to be bisexual responded physically to erotica featuring both men and women, and also reported subjective feelings of arousal. Moreover, even when they did not physically respond, bisexuals still reported arousal from both kinds of videos.
Gay and straight men, however, did not respond to both kinds of video.
The Times noted that earlier this year, another research team looked into the question using similar techniques, though in addition to sex scenes with men and other sex scenes with women, they also showed clips of a man having sex with both another man and a woman in the same encounter.
"I've interviewed a lot of individuals about how invalidating it is when their own family members think they're confused or going through a stage or in denial," Lisa Diamond, a professor of psychology at University of Utah whose expertise is in sexual orientation.
"These converging lines of evidence, using different methods and stimuli, give us the scientific confidence to say this is something real," added Diamond.
"The new studies are relatively small in size, making it hard to draw generalities, especially since bisexual men may have varying levels of sexual, romantic and emotional attraction to partners of either sex," the Times article cautioned. "And of course the studies reveal nothing about patterns of arousal among bisexual women."
At the same time, although the new research does offer objective confirmation of sexual arousal involving both men and women, it evokes that arousal in only one tiny sliver of everything that is possible in the context of the full experience that constitutes a personal meeting.
"Sexual arousal is a very complicated thing," Diamond noted. "The real phenomenon in day-to-day life is extraordinarily messy and multifactorial."
"This unfortunately reduces sexuality and relationships to just sexual stimulation," agreed the Bisexual Resource Center's Ellyn Ruthstrom. "Researchers want to fit bi attraction into a little box -- you have to be exactly the same, attracted to men and women, and you're bisexual. That's nonsense.
"What I love is that people express their bisexuality in so many different ways," added Ruthstrom, whose center is located in Boston.
The Bisexual Organizing Project's Jim Larsen appreciated the new research, but decried the idea that it was necessary to verify a person's own experiences through scientific means.
"It's great that they've come out with affirmation that bisexuality exists," Larsen told the New York Times. "Having said that, they're proving what we in the community already know.
"It's insulting," added Larsen. "I think it's unfortunate that anyone doubts an individual who says, 'This is what I am and who I am.' "
The new research appears in the journal Biological Psychology, the Times reported.
A Wikipedia article on bisexuality notes that the sexual orientation itself seems to have been present throughout human history, and bisexual behavior has been noted in non-human species.
"The term bisexuality, however, like the terms hetero- and homosexuality, was coined in the 19th century," Wikipedia reports.
A June 7 EDGE article on the theme of gay men who have had sexual experiences with women noted that in some cases, men who identify as gay are less concerned about the gender of a person they find sexually attractive. In some cases, the overriding factor is sexual availability; in other cases, personal qualities other than gender play a greater role than the question of whether a prospective sexual partner is male or female.
"I have a dick," one gay man who occasionally has sex with women told EDGE. "It's a nice one. And I'll use it. Period."