Being Bi

Before I say anything about this new study on being bisexual (or not), here are some highlights from the NYT article:

“The study, by a team of psychologists in Chicago and Toronto, lends support to those who have long been skeptical that bisexuality is a distinct and stable sexual orientation.
People who claim bisexuality, according to these critics, are usually homosexual, but are ambivalent about their homosexuality or simply closeted. "You're either gay, straight or lying," as some gay men have put it.

“In the new study, a team of psychologists directly measured genital arousal patterns in response to images of men and women. The psychologists found that men who identified themselves as bisexual were in fact exclusively aroused by either one sex or the other, usually by other men.

“The study is the largest of several small reports suggesting that the estimated 1.7 percent of men who identify themselves as bisexual show physical attraction patterns that differ substantially from their professed desires.”

[Only 1.7 percent? I’m surprised.]

“But the men in the study who described themselves as bisexual did not have patterns of arousal that were consistent with their stated attraction to men and to women. Instead, about three-quarters of the group had arousal patterns identical to those of gay men; the rest were indistinguishable from heterosexuals.”

[A good explanation follows, secondo me.]

“But other researchers - and some self-identified bisexuals - say that the technique used in the study to measure genital arousal is too crude to capture the richness - erotic sensations, affection, admiration - that constitutes sexual attraction.”

[And on to women.]

“About 1.5 percent of American women identify themselves bisexual. And bisexuality appears easier to demonstrate in the female sex [No explanation of this sentence follows—McB.] A study published last November by the same team of Canadian and American researchers, for example, found that most women who said they were bisexual showed arousal to men and to women.

“Although only a small number of women identify themselves as bisexual, Dr. Bailey said, bisexual arousal may for them in fact be the norm.”

[And back to me. Again, I’m surprised by the small percentage. Maybe everything is relative, living in New York. Mostly, maybe I don’t believe in the ability to measure self-deception and social anxiety, among men and women, straight, bi or gay.]