Research on Gay/Straight Marriages

[OralBradley]

Looking at the profiles and reading the discources in fhe forum, I realize that we are far from alone in being a gay/straight marriage. I am bisexual and my wife self-defines as straight.
Years ago, a gay friend left his marriage to acknowledge his homosexuality, and did so with the blessing and good will of his wife. He later went on to get a PhD in human sexuality from the SF Sex Institute, and his dissertation was on "Why Straight Women Stay Married to Gay Men." We read and critiqued his disertation before it was submitted.
Our major critisism of the paper was that the population of his study was too small to be truly valid. On the other hand, it was good enough that it should have generated interest in a larger and more valid research. As a member of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, I heard of many projects, but none that covered this general area.
What I would like to see (or read if it has been done) would be a large, more general study that included and grouping where one partner was gay or bisexual and another was straight. Possibilities could be Str8/Bi or Str8/Gay or Gay/Bi.
Further expansion of the study could include larger groupings such as triads, tetrads, etc. This would allow a Str8/Bi/Gay group, and my guess is that somewhere out there at least one such exists.

[andy bi married]

YES..I THINK THAT WOULD BE A GREAT BIT OF RESEARCH...ANYONE KNOW ANY STUDIES ALREADY DONE???BE INTERESTED TO KNOW

[JohnnyV]

There was an article by Katy Butler of the New York Times, I believe on March 7, about this very topic. The title was "Brokeback Marriages Negotiate..." or something like that.

Also the Journal of Bisexuality has had various issues dealing with this topic. If you search the old threads, I know I posted the full text of the Katy Butler article online here. That was a few weeks ago.

J

[JohnnyV]

What I would like to see (or read if it has been done) would be a large, more general study that included and grouping where one partner was gay or bisexual and another was straight. Possibilities could be Str8/Bi or Str8/Gay or Gay/Bi.
Further expansion of the study could include larger groupings such as triads, tetrads, etc. This would allow a Str8/Bi/Gay group, and my guess is that somewhere out there at least one such exists.

I'm sure that Mimi might know of some studies along these lines. To be honest, though, I'm suspicious of treating these marriages as if they're mixing two species. The perennial problem of such a study is how to define the subgroups that it is defining. Who's gay? Who's straight? Who's bi? Do we submit a questionnaire and then assign each participant a Kinsey score? Do we do as that researcher Bailey did, and strap sensors to their genitals, then show them porn to see what arouses them?

In the Katy Butler article, one Rutgers researcher had a great point, that people have different coupling instincts. Sometimes our sexual, romantic, companionship, and long-term nesting drives don't lead us to the same gender, let alone the same partner. Lots of "heterosexual men" enjoy sex with women but can barely spend any time with their wives because their social affection is almost purely directed toward men.

As someone who studies a lot of world history, I also think it's short-sighted for Western researchers to decide that their categories of gay, straight, and bi are somehow timeless biological boilerplates that they've only recently discovered. Very few cultures have given much weight to such categories, and most cultures have accomodated a spectrum of sex and companionship that often allows people to have close bonds to both men and women in different contexts. You could say that all the world and all of people in history were merely repressed and in denial about the way sex works -- or you could, as I would choose to do, say that in the West we've invented some clumsy categories in the last 100 years and we have to refine them a lot more for them to make sense....

J

[jedinudist]

I'm sure that Mimi might know of some studies along these lines. To be honest, though, I'm suspicious of treating these marriages as if they're mixing two species. The perennial problem of such a study is how to define the subgroups that it is defining. Who's gay? Who's straight? Who's bi? Do we submit a questionnaire and then assign each participant a Kinsey score? Do we do as that researcher Bailey did, and strap sensors to their genitals, then show them porn to see what arouses them?

In the Katy Butler article, one Rutgers researcher had a great point, that people have different coupling instincts. Sometimes our sexual, romantic, companionship, and long-term nesting drives don't lead us to the same gender, let alone the same partner. Lots of "heterosexual men" enjoy sex with women but can barely spend any time with their wives because their social affection is almost purely directed toward men.

As someone who studies a lot of world history, I also think it's short-sighted for Western researchers to decide that their categories of gay, straight, and bi are somehow timeless biological boilerplates that they've only recently discovered. Very few cultures have given much weight to such categories, and most cultures have accomodated a spectrum of sex and companionship that often allows people to have close bonds to both men and women in different contexts. You could say that all the world and all of people in history were merely repressed and in denial about the way sex works -- or you could, as I would choose to do, say that in the West we've invented some clumsy categories in the last 100 years and we have to refine them a lot more for them to make sense....

J

Well said! As for my wife and I- she stays married to her Bisexual husband because she loves me and I love her more everyday! She is the one I am meant to be with and likewise, she feels I am the one she is meant to be with.

[OralBradley]

JohnnyV said: "I'm sure that Mimi might know of some studies along these lines. To be honest, though, I'm suspicious of treating these marriages as if they're mixing two species. The perennial problem of such a study is how to define the subgroups that it is defining. Who's gay? Who's straight? Who's bi? Do we submit a questionnaire and then assign each participant a Kinsey score? Do we do as that researcher Bailey did, and strap sensors to their genitals, then show them porn to see what arouses them?"

My friend's study and what I would propose would be the individuals' self-definitions. As a point, my wife has enjoyed some rather wild times with other women, but defines herself as straight. I, on the other hand, define myself as bisexual though we have been monogamous for 25 years. I fully agree with your reservations, but similar constraints are a necessary part of any research, and the population of 15 in his study couldn't result in any truly valid conclusions. The constraints become a part of the published research.