Sexuality, Women, and LGBT Concerns

This makes me so fucking mad. Read this and be enraged with me!

***This is a 2005 study that will make you (bisexuals) angry and we should stop talking about because it was poorly done (read below my opinions on why) and it was redone more accurately and actually comes to the conclusion that bisexual men exist***

No Surprise for Bisexual Men: Report Indicates they Exist

Why the 2005 study sucks:

1) I wonder where they got these self-identified bisexual men from…gay clubs maybe? Not, from a wide-range of places that have nothing to do with the gay community? Bisexual men who are only in relationships with men, maybe? Not self-identified bi men who are also in relationships and marriages with women? In fact, they got them from gay and alternative newspapers. Yeah, not bisexual newspapers, but gay ones (there’s really no such thing as bi newspapers, though our community has been trying). And “LGBT” newspapers are still just gay newspapers. Yeah, there’s not much equality even within the LGBT community.

2) How many men did they even use in this study? Even the article states that more men need to be included within this study to have an official conclusion. So what was the point of even such an article being published? Because they can. People write articles all the time about studies that have no scientific conclusion, but the articles are written in such a way that makes it seem like the study has a scientific conclusion. It’s simply just something to write about. In fact, only 33 self-identified bisexual men were used in this study. Are you fucking kidding me!? That isn’t even close to enough people to state anything about anything in a scientific study.

3) How did they define bisexuality? Oh, you mean, the men didn’t say “I’m bisexual”? They just said “I’m a kinsey 2,” “I’m a kinsey 3,” “I’m a kinsey 4.” Well, just because someone says they’re a Kinsey 2, 3 or 4 doesn’t mean they identify as bisexual. In fact, some Kinsey 2s may identify as straight and some Kinsey 4s may identify as gay. (Conversely, some Kinsey 1s may identify as bisexual, and some Kinsey 5s may identify as bisexual). People do not need to be equally attracted to men and women, and do not need to be equally arousable via porn to men and women to determine whether or not they are truly bisexual. Is there even such a thing as being truly straight? or truly gay? Why yes, there are Kinsey 0s and Kinsey 6s, but why were straight and homosexual people identifying as anything other than 0 or 6? Isn’t there much more variety and overlap than three distinct categories? Hence, the Kinsey scale, that was even used in this study.

4) I didn’t realize that only involving males in studies determined conclusions we can make about human beings.

5) I didn’t realize that the only way and most accurate way to determine sexual attraction was by measuring how erect a man got. Men can become erect when being raped by a woman or another man, whether gay, straight or bisexual, and truly not wanting the experience, that doesn’t define their sexual orientation nor does it define whether or not they actually wanted sex with that person.

6) I didn’t realize that the only way and most accurate way to determine sexual attraction was by measuring how erect a man got from porn. As a bisexual woman, I don’t get aroused by every sex scene I see (between any variant of genders; male-male, male-female, female-female), but that doesn’t mean I’m not bisexual. Sometimes they’re too violent, (for others, not violent enough), sometimes they are things I’m not into, sometimes I’m not attracted to the people at hand (blondes vs. brunettes, race, height, body type, lipstick lesbian vs. bull dyke and the great number of gender differences in between, macho man vs. sensitive guy and the great number of gender differences in between, etc.). There are so many variables besides what sex the person is in a porno, and that can affect someone’s state of arousal. In addition, as a bisexual woman, if you showed a video of women having sex with each other vs. men having sex with each other, I’m more likely to be aroused by the women. Why? not because I’m more attracted to women than men, but because I AM a woman, and I can imagine me being one of them. That doesn’t mean I’m gay, it just means I’m a bisexual WOMAN. So it makes sense for bisexual men to be more into the men having sex than women having sex, they’re not women. And of course straight men are more aroused by women having sex with each other than bisexual men; the straight men don’t need to see them being involved within it. (Straight) men, sadly, see women’s sexuality as property of men…why else would men get turned on by lesbians? (they think they can still get action from them even though that’s not how lesbianism works). Bisexual men are more knowledgeable about the LGBT community, sexual orientation, and because of that would never try to get with lesbians.

7) This study also treats men as animals; that they should be aroused at any given time, no matter what, by something they’re attracted to. I’m sorry, but sometimes people are on medication that lowers their sex drive, people get depressed, people have stress in their lives, relationship or family problems…just because someone is attracted to a particular sex or gender does not mean they will always get aroused when being shown a porno. Not to mention all of the variables within the actual porno that could affect whether or not someone does not become aroused to a gender they are attracted to, stated above. In fact,  “1/3 of the men in each group (Kinsey 0s & 1s, Kinsey 2s, 3s, and 4s, and Kinsey 5s & 6s) showed no significant arousal watching the movies.” So you mean, of the 33 bisexual men used, only about 22 were actually used to show results, an even more ridiculously low study group.

8) Why are we taking opinions from gay men about bisexual men? There is a long history of biphobia in the gay community, especially among gay men.

9) “Research on sexual orientation has been based almost entirely on self-reports, and this is one of the few good studies using physiological measures,” said Dr. Lisa Diamond, an associate professor of psychology and gender identity at the University of Utah, who was not involved in the study. First of all, this isn’t true. Most studies try to use this horribly inaccurate method of testing one’s sexual attraction (by measuring erection); this isn’t a new method and it’s not a good study (read #1-8). Not to mention, that Lisa Diamond does tons of studies on women’s sexuality and finds that sexuality is fluid, some women who previously identified as straight, identify as bisexual, and some women who previously identified as gay, identify as bisexual, and vice versa for both the former and latter. She would not claim that bisexuality does not exist and would agree with the variety and overlap of the Kinsey scale; this does not mean that bisexuality as a stable sexual orientation does not exist; if that was your conclusion, your conclusion would also have to be that heterosexuality and homosexuality are also not stable sexual orientations. Overlap between the three sexual orientations does not mean that none or any of the three sexual orientations do not exist.

10) The most accurate study so far, done 6 years later (and too much later, if you ask me), despite using this horrible technique of measuring male erections after watching pornos, used self-identified bisexual men who have had long-term sexual relationships with both men and women (at least 2 of each, at least 3 months each) and were not found in gay clubs. This much better study took into account some important variables that other studies have not bothered to do so. Not surprisingly, this is the only study that actually did come to the conclusion that bisexual men exist, not from just an life-long identity standpoint, but from a physiological one. All of the self-identified bisexual men in this study were found be bisexual via the definition of being equally physically aroused (measurement of penis erection) by both men and women from watching pornos. Does this mean that the bisexual men they didn’t use in this study, because they didn’t make the cut, aren’t bisexual? Of course not, it just means that they have not had the experiences/opportunity to have both 2 male and 2 female 3-month plus long-term sexual relationships and may or may not be more attracted to men or women over the other. Bisexuality can technically be anywhere from a Kinsey 1 to a Kinsey 5. Bisexuality may be considered more likely to be between a Kinsey 2 and a Kinsey 4, but it’s up to the individual whether or not they want to identify as bisexual, and only the individual knows who they’re attracted to. At the end of the day, scientists are happy that they were able to accurately test the existence of male bisexuality within labs, and the bisexual community is also happy so we can stop being told that we don’t exist, but that doesn’t mean that measuring ones penis after watching a porno is the only way or best way to see who is and who is not bisexual.

Perhaps, start learning from bisexuals, the bisexual community, bisexual leaders and activists. We wouldn’t be fighting so hard for something that didn’t exist.