leizy
May 31, 2006, 2:49 PM
Another section of my draft chapter about bisexuality. I've included references and authors to the research I'm referencing. This is a long section, but I think one of the most critical. Again, all feedback is welcome...
Bisexuality doesn't actually exist:
The most insidious and undermining prejudice against bisexuality is simply that it doesn't exist. Paula Rust describes it well, explaining that due to the dichotomous conception of sexuality, as hetero- or homo-, the very concept of bisexuality is paradoxical. It was not until the concepts of hetero- or homosexuality were identified and outlined that the concept or classification of bisexuality could even be conceived. However, because the concepts of homosexuality and heterosexuality are defined as mutually exclusive, bisexuality is thus a definitional impossibility.
The definition of bisexuality is one of the most complicated issues here, though it may not seem complicated in the front end. After all, isn't it easy? A bisexual is a person who has sex with both men and women, right? Sure. Except when they're not. Many identified "heterosexual" men and women might engage in sexual behavior with the same sex in some situations (jail, under the influence of substances, in adolescence) but not identify as bisexual. "Yes, I had sex with that person, but I'm straight." If a person has sex with the same sex as an adolescent, then marries and never again has sex with anyone other than their spouse, are they bisexual? Straight? And what if that individual only experiences sexual arousal or pleasure if they fantasize about an individual of the same sex, even when they're with their opposite sex spouse? Is that person then homosexual or bisexual? Kinsey researchers describe the story of a 65 year-old man who fell in love with another man, one year after the death of his wife of 45 years, even though the man reported no history of sexual arousal or attraction to males during his decades long marriage. A person might only engage in exclusively heterosexual behavior, but experience arousal, even during heterosexual activity, only in response to homosexual imagery or fantasizing. So, is it behavior or arousal that defines sexuality? Large-scale national surveys, including the General Social Survey and the National Health and Social Life Survey find that bisexual arousal is much more common than exclusive homosexual arousal, with around 4% of women and men reporting sexual attraction to both women and men, compared to only between .3% and 2% reporting exclusive arousal to the same sex. In contrast to the data regarding arousal, the same studies have suggested that many more men and women have had sexual experiences with both sexes, though they do not identify as bisexual. Studies such as the Janus and Janus study, and the Playboy studies of the 1970s probably represent high estimates, but suggest that as many as 15% of men and 10-12% of women have had postpubertal bisexual experiences. What can this mean, when so many more people are reporting bisexual behaviors than report bisexual arousal? This is a clear example of why the research on bisexuality can be so difficult to entangle, with multiple overlapping definitions and labels used in various writings and research projects, some considering bisexual arousal, others only bisexual behaviors, often with little distinction of the ways these definitions are used.
When examining arousal, the research and findings are equally complex. In fact, according to some research, all women are bisexual, and no men are. Using the sexual arousal response to different types of pornography, Meredith Chivers, a doctoral candidate, found in 2003 that all women in their study reacted with sexual arousal to nudity and sexual behaviors, regardless of gender. It has long been a tenet in sexuality research that men's physiological arousal (measured using a clever little device called a plethysmograph, essentially something like a blood pressure cuff that goes around the penis and measures blood flow. There's a female version that measures flow of blood to the vagina. Watch those cold fingers, they'll spoil your research!) can reveal sexual arousal in surprising, sometimes unconscious ways. It is noteworthy however, that like the polygraph, or “lie-detector,” the actual value and validity of plethysmograph data has been called into question, especially as it relates to the issue of transsexualism. Most research with the plethysmograph has shown that most men respond with increased penile blood flow to pictures depicting female nudity, and some men respond to pictures of male nudity. In findings similar to those of the German women that most dislike bisexuals, some research with the plethysmograph, as recently as 1994 by Adams, has shown that men who express the highest degree of prejudice towards male homosexuals actually show more physiological arousal to male nudity and homosexual pornography, even though they deny feeling sexually aroused. In contrast, some controversial research by J. Michael Bailey, a polarizing and somewhat discredited researcher, has suggested that similar studies with male subjects suggest that men respond with either a homosexual arousal pattern, OR a heterosexual arousal pattern. What's fascinating is that these findings were established with groups of men, many of whom admitted to regularly having sex with both men and women, and called themselves bisexual.
Can behavior serve as a better measure of bisexuality, if we use what people actually do as a defining variable? Perhaps, but how many people out there are having bisexual sex, versus homosexual sex versus heterosexual sex? According to decades of research - lots. In Kinsey's original research, even correcting for some reported problems in his data, there were almost twice as many people (about 10%) reporting bisexual patterns of behavior, as those that reported exclusive homosexual behaviors (2-5%). In national surveys such as the GSS, somewhere between 3-6% of men and women polled reported having both male and female sex partners across their lifespan, though much lower numbers reported having had sex with both men and women within the past year. Other studies have yielded much higher numbers of lifetime bisexual behaviors with results that ranged from 5% to 22% of individuals reporting some homosexual and heterosexual behaviors in their lifetime. Many studies and anecdotal accounts describe that for both bisexual men and women, it is much easier to find male sexual partners, than female partners. According to these accounts, male sexual partners can be easily, even anonymously encountered through bars, gay bars, gay bathhouses, adult bookstores, and personal advertisements, in contrast to the relative effort and difficulty involved in acquiring a female sex partner. Studies by the US Centers for Disease Control indicated 6% of men have had oral or anal sex with other men in their lifetime, and 11% of women have had "any kind of sexual experience" with another female in their lifetime. Isn't that an interesting difference in questions, suggesting an odd dual standard? Are they suggesting it only counts for guys if somebody's penis goes somewhere, but for girls, anything counts? Perhaps. Historically, female homosexual or bisexual behavior has been perceived as much less problematic or pathological than similar male behaviors.
How do these individuals identify themselves? Do they use the labels straight, gay, or bisexual? Might that mean something, might it add something to this question? It is a valuable concept, but unfortunately it just confuses things even further. In studies conducted by the US Center for Disease Control, more people identify as bisexual than homosexual - roughly 2-3% of men and women see themselves as bisexual, as compared to only around 2% identifying as homosexual. An interesting side note in these results was that a much larger percentage of respondents (about 4%) described themselves as "something else," rather than accepting the labels of bisexual, homosexual or heterosexual. In a German study by Steffens, 2% of individuals who identified as heterosexual reported very strong attraction to their own gender. In contrast, 6% of the heterosexuals reported no attraction at all towards the opposite sex. It certainly begs the question, how heterosexual are most heterosexuals?
In the Janus and Janus study, about 3% of women and 5% of men identified themselves as bisexual, while only 2% and 4% labeled themselves as bisexual. Even among those that self-identify as homosexual, most studies suggest that about half of those individuals have had heterosexual encounters in their life. So, if roughly 5% of people identify as bisexual, and roughly 3% identify as homosexual, and the remaining 92% identify as heterosexual (let's momentarily ignore our difficult to categorize "something else" group). And then, if something like 11-22% of women and men are having homosexual encounters, regardless of their label, and around 50% of homosexuals have had heterosexual sex, then there's quite a number of people that identify as heterosexual that are out there having a whole bunch of gay sex, and a whole bunch of people that call themselves gay or lesbian that are having opposite-gender sex. Are they not paying attention? Do they forget giving that guy a blowjob when they identify as straight? Are they ignoring that guy they slept with last week when they identify as lesbian? In fact, it might be a factor of numbers, rather than just having homosexual or bisexual sex, as there are intriguing studies suggesting that among men who have sex with both men and women, it is the number of male partners in the past year that statistically predicts their sexual identity. In one study conducted by Wood, et al., with men who had sex with both men and women in Seattle, those men identifying themselves as straight had an average of 2.8 male partners and 3.8 female partners. Those men who identified as gay reported 9.9 male and 2.3 female partners, and 7.9 male and 2.6 female partners were reported by those who self identify as bisexual.
Many bisexual respondents attend to multiple variables as they describe their sexual identity, separating their physical, romantic, and emotional feelings. In one study, reviewed by Rust, nine percent of bisexuals described that their feeling of attraction towards others did not rely upon gender, while only seven percent reported that their sexual identity reflected and was integral with their actual sexual behaviors. Some identified that their bisexuality was reflective of their political beliefs, rather than their sexual and emotional feelings. There is more to identity than sexual behavior, and more to labels than sexual arousal. While a great many people do rely on their sexual behaviors to drive their sexual identity, having same-gender sex for a good while before they identify themselves as homosexual, some studies now suggest that a lot more individuals are identifying their sexual orientation before they actually have sex. Studies by researchers such as Rust have indicated that for both men and women, a bisexual self-identity is not dependent upon having sex with both men and women. In other words, most bisexuals report that they would still identify as bisexual, regardless of their sexual behavior. While this appears contradictory to the findings that the number of male sex partners in an individual's history may predict their self-identity, it is important to remember that these findings discuss what people say about their beliefs and motivations, rather than what they have actually done in the past.
Some research findings, including research conducted by scholars Diamond and Dube, suggest that young people may be establishing nonheterosexual identities earlier. This change may be due to the decreased stigma of homosexuality. As previously described, there is less stigma and judgment towards homosexual and/or bisexual behaviors among younger generations. Younger generations are also having more bisexual sex - while only 1% and 3% of men and women between the ages of fifteen and forty-four have had sex with both sexes in the past year, between five and six percent of teen girls and women between the ages of 20 and 24 report having had sex with both genders in the previous twelve months. Some findings, such as those by Wood, do suggest that the patterns of recent sexual behavior do seem to drive an individual's sexual identity. However, there are also many findings suggesting that some individuals maintain multiple identities, referring to themselves as both bisexual and homosexual, or even "something else" depending upon context. And, this is an area where women and men seem to be different; while male sexual identity appears to be driven by the recent history of sexual partners, female sexual identity is much more variable, and even contradictory at times to their chosen sexual partners. Research suggests that women tend to identify their sexualities in ways that do not relate directly to their sexual behaviors or attraction to others, but attend to other relationship variables in describing and defining their sexual identity.
If we exclude self-identification as excessively individualistic, and just consider sexual behaviors and sexual arousal, the definition of bisexuality is still problematic, leaving as many people out of that definition as are included. Expanding the definition to consider some of the other things considered by writers such as Klein, including one's emotional preferences, or who they choose to trust and be intimate with, regardless of sexuality, or their sexual fantasy life, or their social preferences, we quickly end up with a complicated nest of definitions that could easily include OR exclude many more people than just behavior and arousal. Klein's approach, an approach increasingly common in the field, acknowledges that sexuality and relationships are very complex concepts in people's lives, with so many intertwined needs that a single label approach may be an impossibility. The Centers for Disease Control found that one of every four men who carried HIV and engaged in sex with men actually identified as heterosexual. As they tried to educate and reach out to prevent HIV transmission, they had to give up trying to chase these labels and educate only gay and bisexual men. Instead, they adopted the acronyms MSM for Men who have Sex with Men, and WSW for Women who have Sex with Women, and began to try to address the behaviors that posed a risk, rather than the sexual orientations that may or may not affect behaviors.
So, does bisexuality exist? Well, yes. And maybe no, depending upon what group, what definition and what research you're talking about. It is clear that bisexuality is many different things, to many different people. Is bisexuality the same for men and women? The jury is still out on that, but many people seem to agree that males and females Because there are so many conflicting, overlapping and intertwined definitions, there are a lot of holes for these people to fall into. However, for something that might not exist, there sure are a lot of people doing it.
Bisexuality doesn't actually exist:
The most insidious and undermining prejudice against bisexuality is simply that it doesn't exist. Paula Rust describes it well, explaining that due to the dichotomous conception of sexuality, as hetero- or homo-, the very concept of bisexuality is paradoxical. It was not until the concepts of hetero- or homosexuality were identified and outlined that the concept or classification of bisexuality could even be conceived. However, because the concepts of homosexuality and heterosexuality are defined as mutually exclusive, bisexuality is thus a definitional impossibility.
The definition of bisexuality is one of the most complicated issues here, though it may not seem complicated in the front end. After all, isn't it easy? A bisexual is a person who has sex with both men and women, right? Sure. Except when they're not. Many identified "heterosexual" men and women might engage in sexual behavior with the same sex in some situations (jail, under the influence of substances, in adolescence) but not identify as bisexual. "Yes, I had sex with that person, but I'm straight." If a person has sex with the same sex as an adolescent, then marries and never again has sex with anyone other than their spouse, are they bisexual? Straight? And what if that individual only experiences sexual arousal or pleasure if they fantasize about an individual of the same sex, even when they're with their opposite sex spouse? Is that person then homosexual or bisexual? Kinsey researchers describe the story of a 65 year-old man who fell in love with another man, one year after the death of his wife of 45 years, even though the man reported no history of sexual arousal or attraction to males during his decades long marriage. A person might only engage in exclusively heterosexual behavior, but experience arousal, even during heterosexual activity, only in response to homosexual imagery or fantasizing. So, is it behavior or arousal that defines sexuality? Large-scale national surveys, including the General Social Survey and the National Health and Social Life Survey find that bisexual arousal is much more common than exclusive homosexual arousal, with around 4% of women and men reporting sexual attraction to both women and men, compared to only between .3% and 2% reporting exclusive arousal to the same sex. In contrast to the data regarding arousal, the same studies have suggested that many more men and women have had sexual experiences with both sexes, though they do not identify as bisexual. Studies such as the Janus and Janus study, and the Playboy studies of the 1970s probably represent high estimates, but suggest that as many as 15% of men and 10-12% of women have had postpubertal bisexual experiences. What can this mean, when so many more people are reporting bisexual behaviors than report bisexual arousal? This is a clear example of why the research on bisexuality can be so difficult to entangle, with multiple overlapping definitions and labels used in various writings and research projects, some considering bisexual arousal, others only bisexual behaviors, often with little distinction of the ways these definitions are used.
When examining arousal, the research and findings are equally complex. In fact, according to some research, all women are bisexual, and no men are. Using the sexual arousal response to different types of pornography, Meredith Chivers, a doctoral candidate, found in 2003 that all women in their study reacted with sexual arousal to nudity and sexual behaviors, regardless of gender. It has long been a tenet in sexuality research that men's physiological arousal (measured using a clever little device called a plethysmograph, essentially something like a blood pressure cuff that goes around the penis and measures blood flow. There's a female version that measures flow of blood to the vagina. Watch those cold fingers, they'll spoil your research!) can reveal sexual arousal in surprising, sometimes unconscious ways. It is noteworthy however, that like the polygraph, or “lie-detector,” the actual value and validity of plethysmograph data has been called into question, especially as it relates to the issue of transsexualism. Most research with the plethysmograph has shown that most men respond with increased penile blood flow to pictures depicting female nudity, and some men respond to pictures of male nudity. In findings similar to those of the German women that most dislike bisexuals, some research with the plethysmograph, as recently as 1994 by Adams, has shown that men who express the highest degree of prejudice towards male homosexuals actually show more physiological arousal to male nudity and homosexual pornography, even though they deny feeling sexually aroused. In contrast, some controversial research by J. Michael Bailey, a polarizing and somewhat discredited researcher, has suggested that similar studies with male subjects suggest that men respond with either a homosexual arousal pattern, OR a heterosexual arousal pattern. What's fascinating is that these findings were established with groups of men, many of whom admitted to regularly having sex with both men and women, and called themselves bisexual.
Can behavior serve as a better measure of bisexuality, if we use what people actually do as a defining variable? Perhaps, but how many people out there are having bisexual sex, versus homosexual sex versus heterosexual sex? According to decades of research - lots. In Kinsey's original research, even correcting for some reported problems in his data, there were almost twice as many people (about 10%) reporting bisexual patterns of behavior, as those that reported exclusive homosexual behaviors (2-5%). In national surveys such as the GSS, somewhere between 3-6% of men and women polled reported having both male and female sex partners across their lifespan, though much lower numbers reported having had sex with both men and women within the past year. Other studies have yielded much higher numbers of lifetime bisexual behaviors with results that ranged from 5% to 22% of individuals reporting some homosexual and heterosexual behaviors in their lifetime. Many studies and anecdotal accounts describe that for both bisexual men and women, it is much easier to find male sexual partners, than female partners. According to these accounts, male sexual partners can be easily, even anonymously encountered through bars, gay bars, gay bathhouses, adult bookstores, and personal advertisements, in contrast to the relative effort and difficulty involved in acquiring a female sex partner. Studies by the US Centers for Disease Control indicated 6% of men have had oral or anal sex with other men in their lifetime, and 11% of women have had "any kind of sexual experience" with another female in their lifetime. Isn't that an interesting difference in questions, suggesting an odd dual standard? Are they suggesting it only counts for guys if somebody's penis goes somewhere, but for girls, anything counts? Perhaps. Historically, female homosexual or bisexual behavior has been perceived as much less problematic or pathological than similar male behaviors.
How do these individuals identify themselves? Do they use the labels straight, gay, or bisexual? Might that mean something, might it add something to this question? It is a valuable concept, but unfortunately it just confuses things even further. In studies conducted by the US Center for Disease Control, more people identify as bisexual than homosexual - roughly 2-3% of men and women see themselves as bisexual, as compared to only around 2% identifying as homosexual. An interesting side note in these results was that a much larger percentage of respondents (about 4%) described themselves as "something else," rather than accepting the labels of bisexual, homosexual or heterosexual. In a German study by Steffens, 2% of individuals who identified as heterosexual reported very strong attraction to their own gender. In contrast, 6% of the heterosexuals reported no attraction at all towards the opposite sex. It certainly begs the question, how heterosexual are most heterosexuals?
In the Janus and Janus study, about 3% of women and 5% of men identified themselves as bisexual, while only 2% and 4% labeled themselves as bisexual. Even among those that self-identify as homosexual, most studies suggest that about half of those individuals have had heterosexual encounters in their life. So, if roughly 5% of people identify as bisexual, and roughly 3% identify as homosexual, and the remaining 92% identify as heterosexual (let's momentarily ignore our difficult to categorize "something else" group). And then, if something like 11-22% of women and men are having homosexual encounters, regardless of their label, and around 50% of homosexuals have had heterosexual sex, then there's quite a number of people that identify as heterosexual that are out there having a whole bunch of gay sex, and a whole bunch of people that call themselves gay or lesbian that are having opposite-gender sex. Are they not paying attention? Do they forget giving that guy a blowjob when they identify as straight? Are they ignoring that guy they slept with last week when they identify as lesbian? In fact, it might be a factor of numbers, rather than just having homosexual or bisexual sex, as there are intriguing studies suggesting that among men who have sex with both men and women, it is the number of male partners in the past year that statistically predicts their sexual identity. In one study conducted by Wood, et al., with men who had sex with both men and women in Seattle, those men identifying themselves as straight had an average of 2.8 male partners and 3.8 female partners. Those men who identified as gay reported 9.9 male and 2.3 female partners, and 7.9 male and 2.6 female partners were reported by those who self identify as bisexual.
Many bisexual respondents attend to multiple variables as they describe their sexual identity, separating their physical, romantic, and emotional feelings. In one study, reviewed by Rust, nine percent of bisexuals described that their feeling of attraction towards others did not rely upon gender, while only seven percent reported that their sexual identity reflected and was integral with their actual sexual behaviors. Some identified that their bisexuality was reflective of their political beliefs, rather than their sexual and emotional feelings. There is more to identity than sexual behavior, and more to labels than sexual arousal. While a great many people do rely on their sexual behaviors to drive their sexual identity, having same-gender sex for a good while before they identify themselves as homosexual, some studies now suggest that a lot more individuals are identifying their sexual orientation before they actually have sex. Studies by researchers such as Rust have indicated that for both men and women, a bisexual self-identity is not dependent upon having sex with both men and women. In other words, most bisexuals report that they would still identify as bisexual, regardless of their sexual behavior. While this appears contradictory to the findings that the number of male sex partners in an individual's history may predict their self-identity, it is important to remember that these findings discuss what people say about their beliefs and motivations, rather than what they have actually done in the past.
Some research findings, including research conducted by scholars Diamond and Dube, suggest that young people may be establishing nonheterosexual identities earlier. This change may be due to the decreased stigma of homosexuality. As previously described, there is less stigma and judgment towards homosexual and/or bisexual behaviors among younger generations. Younger generations are also having more bisexual sex - while only 1% and 3% of men and women between the ages of fifteen and forty-four have had sex with both sexes in the past year, between five and six percent of teen girls and women between the ages of 20 and 24 report having had sex with both genders in the previous twelve months. Some findings, such as those by Wood, do suggest that the patterns of recent sexual behavior do seem to drive an individual's sexual identity. However, there are also many findings suggesting that some individuals maintain multiple identities, referring to themselves as both bisexual and homosexual, or even "something else" depending upon context. And, this is an area where women and men seem to be different; while male sexual identity appears to be driven by the recent history of sexual partners, female sexual identity is much more variable, and even contradictory at times to their chosen sexual partners. Research suggests that women tend to identify their sexualities in ways that do not relate directly to their sexual behaviors or attraction to others, but attend to other relationship variables in describing and defining their sexual identity.
If we exclude self-identification as excessively individualistic, and just consider sexual behaviors and sexual arousal, the definition of bisexuality is still problematic, leaving as many people out of that definition as are included. Expanding the definition to consider some of the other things considered by writers such as Klein, including one's emotional preferences, or who they choose to trust and be intimate with, regardless of sexuality, or their sexual fantasy life, or their social preferences, we quickly end up with a complicated nest of definitions that could easily include OR exclude many more people than just behavior and arousal. Klein's approach, an approach increasingly common in the field, acknowledges that sexuality and relationships are very complex concepts in people's lives, with so many intertwined needs that a single label approach may be an impossibility. The Centers for Disease Control found that one of every four men who carried HIV and engaged in sex with men actually identified as heterosexual. As they tried to educate and reach out to prevent HIV transmission, they had to give up trying to chase these labels and educate only gay and bisexual men. Instead, they adopted the acronyms MSM for Men who have Sex with Men, and WSW for Women who have Sex with Women, and began to try to address the behaviors that posed a risk, rather than the sexual orientations that may or may not affect behaviors.
So, does bisexuality exist? Well, yes. And maybe no, depending upon what group, what definition and what research you're talking about. It is clear that bisexuality is many different things, to many different people. Is bisexuality the same for men and women? The jury is still out on that, but many people seem to agree that males and females Because there are so many conflicting, overlapping and intertwined definitions, there are a lot of holes for these people to fall into. However, for something that might not exist, there sure are a lot of people doing it.