Straight, Gay or Lying? Are there really bisexuals?

damien

NY Times article on bisexuality research.

This is sure to piss off a lot of people. I for one do believe that bisexuality is probably a lot more common than is said though I do agree a lot of men who claim to be bi are in fact gay and cannot get over that last hurdle and say so. Gaydar has lots of examples of that type.

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.

Using a sensor to monitor sexual arousal, the researchers found what they expected: gay men showed arousal to images of men and little arousal to images of women, and heterosexual men showed arousal to women but not to men.

A sensor? Is that like an Erectoscope or something?

"Regardless of whether the men were gay, straight or bisexual, they showed about four times more arousal" to one sex or the other, said Gerulf Rieger, a graduate psychology student at Northwestern and the study's lead author.

So, do people think that some people latch on to the term "bisexual" as they find it easier than acknowledging they are in fact homosexual? Note, I said some, I do believe most who identify as bi are as they say.

Stark

Well the results could be considered accurate if everyone responded to "Love at first sight only".

The means of testing is way too simplistic. It fails to take into account how people respond to familiarity, personality traits, voice, mannerisms etc. It takes a lot longer than less than a second (which is the timeframe that a lot of these tests use to avoid people thinking out their answers) to decide who you find attractive or not.

moridin

Stark wrote:

Well the results could be considered accurate if everyone responded to "Love at first sight only".

The means of testing is way too simplistic. It fails to take into account how people respond to familiarity, personality traits, voice, mannerisms etc. It takes a lot longer than less than a second (which is the timeframe that a lot of these tests use to avoid people thinking out their answers) to decide who you find attractive or not.

Hmm, I dunno about that... generally it's pretty easy to see who you do and don't find physically attractive within a couple of seconds...

The other type of attraction, to personality, and thereby warming to someone's physical body does take longer yes, but that's dependant on psycological issues as well as physical ones.

Perhaps the test was trying to bypass psycological insecurities by just testing bodily stimulation... thereby avoiding the messy questions for some people who like to label themselves as Bi because they don't want to accept that they're gay, or straight.

qwertyphobia

two points i would raise about the study are

It only measures sexual responces at a fixed point in time who's to say if you retested some of thoes men in a years time you would get the same rates of responce. For some people who identify as bisexual they experience different levels of attraction at different points of time.

I know very few bisexuals who claim that to be a "geniune" bisexual you must be 50/50 split down the middle. So what if there is more sexual arousal to one gender then another I don't see how that could be constructed to invaladate bisexuality as an identity?



on a lighter note maybe the gay porn was just better then the straight porn they where showing

Hmm_Messiah

Using a sensor to monitor sexual arousal, the researchers found what they expected: gay men showed arousal to images of men and little arousal to images of women, and heterosexual men showed arousal to women but not to men.

Excuse the pun but this is a load of b****x.

I personally have always been aware that I "respond" more to "images of men" as the survey puts it. The survey presumes sexuality is defined only buy physical attraction. I have had full longterm happy complete relationships with women. That I find mens bits or whatever more arousing doesn't negate that I hove found the women I loved many times more arousing and fulflling than some anonymous generic image.

I don't know about other bisexuals but I always acknowleded I was more interested in men physically but women emotionally. (For a long time it seemed I'd only find erm a "physical" enjoyment in men, nothing more)

azezil

Hmm_Messiah wrote:

Excuse the pun but this is a load of b****x.

I personally have always been aware that I "respond" more to "images of men" as the survey puts it. The survey presumes sexuality is defined only buy physical attraction. I have had full longterm happy complete relationships with women. That I find mens bits or whatever more arousing doesn't negate that I hove found the women I loved many times more arousing and fulflling than some anonymous generic image.

I don't know about other bisexuals but I always acknowleded I was more interested in men physically but women emotionally. (For a long time it seemed I'd only find erm a "physical" enjoyment in men, nothing more)

That sounds to me like you get along better with women...
To be honest I would go with the view that if you get sexually aroused looking at men more so than women you're leaning on the gay side.

shay_562

Bah. Bisexuals are just greedy.

snappieT

Bah, sexually unadventurous people are just rigid.

Rozie

Personally, i think at least 1/3 of the population is bi or homosexual of either gender. Our ancestors would suggest that...

Tiffany

Of the four "bisexual" people I have known, two of them later admitted to be gay, one straight and just experimenting (but didn't like it), and only one is a confirmed bisexual.

fortysixand2

Tiffany wrote:

Of the four "bisexual" people I have known, two of them later admitted to be gay, one straight and just experimenting (but didn't like it), and only one is a confirmed bisexual.

Doesn't that add up to 5?

damien

fortysixand2 wrote:

Doesn't that add up to 5?

For social welfare claims maybe.

Hmm_Messiah

That sounds to me like you get along better with women...
To be honest I would go with the view that if you get sexually aroused looking at men more so than women you're leaning on the gay side.

Cool! I waited 36yrs for someone to sort it out for me.

And I dunno about what visually arouses you = determining sexuality. From the little I know of it people develop"scripts" for everythign as children : what dad is, mum, what school means, what toys are good, how to play with boys, hjow to play with girls, etc etc. These scripts then guide us as adults, and for some people are so strictly followed as to limit life. Its possible, for what ever reason to find yourself responsive something visually without that caterogising your complete sexual response.
Eitherways responses can be confused. e.g what might be aesthetically appreciated (Michaelangelos David) can be misread as some sexual stimulus.

Dunno if showing porn to people is the best was to determine sexuality. Though I do think its likely bisexuals are often actually ambiguous or not yet determined on either side (if you see sexuality as either A or

MicraBoy

Of the four "bisexual" people I have known, two of them later admitted to be gay, one straight and just experimenting (but didn't like it), and only one is a confirmed bisexual.

So what you are saying is you have known one bisexual person. People who use the term bisexual as a comfort blanket, as a transitionary identity or because they are experimenting can't be classed as truely bisexual. They shouldn't be lumped into the same category. That's if we're going to do any lumping of course!

qwertyphobia

done some more reading up of the study, it's based on 101 men of which 33 identified as Bisexual.

So 4 or 5 people who claimed they where bisexual in the study would compleatly over weigh the study with a sample of that size

azezil

MicraBoy wrote:

So what you are saying is you have known one bisexual person. People who use the term bisexual as a comfort blanket,

I did!

MicraBoy

I did!

I guess that make you part of a very large club then! I don't think that there is anything wrong with that either. The problem is when it's used to bash bisexuality by the Ubermensch or homo superiors!!

the_syco

Using a sensor to monitor sexual arousal, the researchers found what they expected: gay men showed arousal to images of men and little arousal to images of women, and heterosexual men showed arousal to women but not to men.

Never heard more sh|t in my life. The dude may like skinny blokes, but only fat women, thus no reaction when shown a skinny anorxic chick. Also, the dude may be ashamed of the fact that he likes fat chicks, so he sticks with the gay males.

Oh, and if you "expect" a result, you'll keep trying till you find the "expected" result. IE: if you got proven wrong the first 9 times, and were proved right the 10th time, you'll take the results from the 10th time, and hold these as the "expected" results, imo.

You only get the truth if you hold no expectations on what you shall find.

Hmm_Messiah

I'd be happy to take the test at home if they forwarded the viewing material
(and perhaps the sensor)

Tiffany

fortysixand2 wrote:

Doesn't that add up to 5?

What fifth person are you counting?

Tiffany wrote:

Of the four "bisexual" people I have known, two of them later admitted to be gay, one straight and just experimenting (but didn't like it), and only one is a confirmed bisexual.

Two + one + one = four

Want a re-count?

Boston

Problem is, even physically, it tends to be different things that arouse moi in men as apposed to women.

moridin

LiouVille wrote:

Problem is, even physically, it tends to be different things that arouse moi in men as apposed to women.

That's *almost* too much information

Rock Climber

azezil wrote:

To be honest I would go with the view that if you get sexually aroused looking at men more so than women you're leaning on the gay side.

Well thats obvious.
I've been in love with women but currently its a man
Some women are absolutely beautifull and so are some men.
I guess I'm bisexual then.

Boston

you know I never really got this whole defensive attitude to Bi-sexuality from Bi people. Don't get me wrong, i get the defensive attitude towards having to right be be with another guy, and then a woman, or whatever which way. But generally I let people believe whatever they want. Whenever someone asks if I'm exclusively gay, I just say not quiet.

qwertyphobia

for anyone who may STILL have any faith in this study the author is a flake

http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/LynnsReviewOfBaileysBook.html

Lisa Diamond who supports the study appears to be linked to NARTH

RedPlanet

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has done a rebuttal of this NY Times article.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2573

Good points, particularly about the author