Gay, straight, or lying?

July 5, 2005 3:36 PM

Bisexuals do not exist, at least according to a study reported in the New York Times. Or, if you look at the actual procedure as opposed to what the researchers claim, some unknown percentage of bisexual men are more aroused by one kind of porn movie than another. Of course, the senior author on the study, J. Michael Bailey, has stirred controversy before with his book The Man Who Would Be Queen, which has been tainted with charges scientifically unsoundness, academic misconduct, practicing without a license, fabricating data, and sex with a research subject. In it, he asserts the ... unique point of view that transsexuals are either effeminate gay men who undergo "sex changes" in order to have sex with lots of men, or sexual paraphilic males who "change sex" for bizarre autosexual reasons. And, is anyone else wondering why, when he writes about bisexuals or transsexuals, he seems to fail to notice that they aren’t exclusively men?
posted by kyrademon (101 comments total)

*charges of scientific unsoundness*, that is. You proofread and proofread ...
posted by kyrademon at 3:37 PM on July 5, 2005

Wow, this study sounds completely reasonable...
posted by odinsdream at 3:40 PM on July 5, 2005

You know what's really gay? Fabricating data.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 3:45 PM on July 5, 2005

Thanks for posting this. Interesting, if contentious reading.
posted by Rothko at 3:48 PM on July 5, 2005

Reminds me of a t-shirt I saw at the last pride parade I went to (years ago):

"Yes, I am bisexual. I don't believe you exist either!"
posted by trip and a half at 3:51 PM on July 5, 2005

In the new study, a team of psychologists directly measured genital arousal patterns in response to images... um, ... Directly?
posted by R. Mutt at 3:51 PM on July 5, 2005

It's the only way to be sure.
posted by odinsdream at 3:54 PM on July 5, 2005

R. Mutt, that means they felt them get stiffies, I think.

Also, best and shortest write up ever.
A new study casts doubt on whether true bisexuality exists, at least in men.

Oh wait, you mean there was more?
posted by fenriq at 3:55 PM on July 5, 2005

I can't stand this guy. He claims all women are bisexual, transmen don't actually even exist, all transwomen are pathological liars (as evidenced by the fact that almost all of them disagree with him) and are very stupid, and that anyone who disagrees with his assertions about sexuality is lying.

He doesn't deserve any of the ink he's getting.
posted by evilangela at 3:56 PM on July 5, 2005

And, is anyone else wondering why, when he writes about bisexuals or transsexuals, he seems to fail to notice that they aren’t exclusively men?

I've talked to Dr. Bailey a couple of times about this -- he certainly doesn't "fail to notice it", but he views male and female sexuality as being very different and he's more interested in studying male sexuality than female. The arousal study NYT is talking about is a male-only study but it is extending a female-only study that found more-or-less opposite results; the Man Who Would Be Queen stuff is explicitly limited to people born male because the research doesn't apply to women for many reasons. Not the least of which is because he believes that one kind of transsexualism is a paraphelia, and apparently paraphelias occur only in men. This is talked about right in the beginning of The Man Who Would be Queen and in the linked article ... just sayin'.

I'm not connected to Bailey in any way, nor am I a psychologist who can judge his research meaningfully. But I share a mutual acquaintance with him, we've chatted a few times at parties, and I've been aware of his work for a couple of years.

On preview: R. Mutt: yes, directly. They attached probes to participants' genitals and measured blood flow while the participants watched porn. BEST WAY TO EARN THAT PSYCH 101 RESEARCH CREDIT EVER!
posted by jacobm at 4:00 PM on July 5, 2005

"Regardless of whether the men were gay, straight or bisexual, they showed about four times more arousal" to one sex or the other...

That virtually every man showed some arousal toward both genders suggests to me that they were all bisexual.
posted by mischief at 4:03 PM on July 5, 2005

jacobm - A fair point. I admit I was mostly being snarky with that line. But he does focus more on men than women, and the indiscriminate use of "bisexual" to mean "bisexual man" and "transsexual" to mean "MTF" - which, admittedly, might be more in the reporting of his work than the work itself - pissed me off.
posted by kyrademon at 4:08 PM on July 5, 2005

<McBain>Maybe you are all homosexuals</McBain>

This guy seems to have come up with some interesting data. It'd be interesting to see it refuted or supported by somebody else. Too bad he's such a jackass about how he presents his study.
posted by gurple at 4:08 PM on July 5, 2005

I've come up with some interesting data that states warm, fresh human brains are more delicious than flank steak. I'd be interested to see this refuted or supported by somebody else.
posted by odinsdream at 4:23 PM on July 5, 2005

Bailey does, perhaps, seem to go out of his way to draw publicity. Still, if it weren't for the controversial area he works in, no one would bat an eyelash. Scientists say things all the time that aren't strictly supported by their data--egged on by journalists who want a good story rather than a set of limited conclusions qualified by several dozen caveats.

I saw Bailey give a talk several months ago at my department. He came across (to me, at least) as a completely reasonable individual. The studies he reported were well thought out, well-controlled, and... completely misunderstood by a number of people in the audience who were clearly there to be offended.

I'm not defending Bailey's book, which may or may not be as irresponsible as people have claimed--I haven't read it. But certainly, many of the complaints people have seem to derive solely from the fact that they don't like Bailey's conclusions, and not out of any scientific conviction that there's a problem with his studies.

As far as the point cited in the FPP and NYT article concerning bisexuality (in men), the relevant results are as follows: in both straight and homosexual males, sexual arousal while viewing porn is almost perfectly correlated with reported sexual preference. In other words, gay men are genitally aroused by gay porn; straight men are genitally aroused by straight porn; and there are very view people who are aroused by stimuli of the non-preferred sexual orientation. However, self-reported bisexual men do not fit this pattern; that is, they are not aroused by both male and female sexual stimuli, but rather tend to be aroused strictly by one or the other. The inference that Bailey draws is that, because sexuality is so tightly coupled in straight and gay males, and because sexual arousal displays the same discrete pattern in self-reported bisexual men, the most parsimonious explanation is that many or most bisexual men are either not reporting their sexual orientation honestly or are confused.

This stands in marked contrast to the results for females. A majority of females--both straight and lesbian--are more sexually aroused by lesbian porn than straight porn. And sexual arousal does not correlate with reported sexual orientation in females. So in females, it looks like whatever sexual orientation depends on, it's not (at least, not predominantly) sexual arousal. All in all, that's a pretty clear gender difference, whether or not you agree with Bailey's inferences concerning male bisexuality. And as was pointed out above, sexual paraphilias occur almost exclusively in males, suggesting it's certainly not unthinkable that sexual arousal is a much larger determinant in males' sexual preferences and behavior than in females'.

The point I'm trying to make is that the research is not as simple-minded as the FPP or NYT article might make it sound. There's pretty sound reasoning behind Bailey's research program. That doesn't mean he's right, of course; his results have yet to be independently replicated (but there are no contradictory results either--so far no one else has done the same study). But it certainly doesn't just boil down to the assertion that some unknown percentage of bisexual men are more aroused by one kind of porn movie than another. And the ad hominem attack in the second part of the article certainly doesn't encourage much objectivity either (unfortunately, most of the flack Bailey's caught has the same flavor: we don't like your conclusions, so we're going to disregard your evidence).
posted by heavy water at 4:28 PM on July 5, 2005

Now, I'll admit that my penis is a sample size of only one, but I have yet to replicate Dr. Bailey's results.
posted by flashboy at 4:38 PM on July 5, 2005

This sounds utterly goddamned ridiculous.
posted by nightchrome at 4:58 PM on July 5, 2005

hrmm... Heavy water - do you know what type of porn was used in the female sexual studies? Because a lot of hetero porn is more on the mysogynistic side, which is much less the case in lesbian porn. That would definitely have an effect on the results of the study.
posted by antifuse at 5:06 PM on July 5, 2005

couldn't the fact that our culture overwhelmingly focuses on women's bodies as the sexual object rather than male (changing more and more, granted) have a lot of influence over what someone gets turned on by in a movie?

as a bi-chick, i'm greatly relieved to know that at least i continue to exist.

(pinching myself, to make sure.)

(on the arm, dammit.)
posted by RedEmma at 5:09 PM on July 5, 2005

heavy water: you've painted a disingenuous picture.

His book has been soundly criticized by the scientific community not because of his conclusions, but because it is indisputably bad science. It's not even contestable.

I'm a bit surprised that you've drawn conclusions about the motivations of its critics without actually reading it.

As for interpretations of penile plethysmograph measurements, it might be wise to await the independent duplication of the results.
posted by cytherea at 5:12 PM on July 5, 2005

Hm. Dr. Bailey has proved without the remotest shadow of a doubt that I do not exist, and yet here I am. What would Descartes have to say about that?
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:12 PM on July 5, 2005

Thanks for the analysis, heavy water. I find that news articles about science are generally either hyperbolized or just wrong, and I'm sick of tracking down primary sources to read the researchers actual methodology and conclusions.

This sounds utterly goddamned ridiculous.
What makes you say that? Are you disagreeing with Bailey's conclusions, or are you accusing him of faking the data?
posted by muddgirl at 5:12 PM on July 5, 2005

They're interesting things, the article and research. My first reaction was to wonder why reaction to erotic images is being used as a measure of sexual orientation. Non-hetero orientations have no natural procreative/copulative purpose, and thus the reaction to images of sexual contact seems less valid as a measure of overall orientation.

I'm forgetting the right research terminology right now, but the argument I'm making is the biological hetero/homo/bi reactions to porn do not directly correlate with sexuality. This makes even more sense to me when considering that the female results were so vastly different. It is surely convenient to claim that those differences are rooted in gender, but it also seems like robust evidence that some variables are not being properly considered.

My impression of sexuality differentiation has always been rooted in the capacity to fall in love or feel romantically for another person. I’d argue that such capacity is lower in the social development scale than being able to achieve sexual arousal by visual stimulation, and is thus a more stable measurement.

Gay men spend their lives focused on men from a sexual perspective. Straight men spend their lives focused on women. Since bisexuality isn’t at all reflected in the culture, wouldn’t it make sense that circumstance would cause a visual sexual orientation towards one gender? And if a bisexual person is more significantly visually stimulated by one gender, but falls in love with both, does that mean they’re not bisexual?
posted by VulcanMike at 5:13 PM on July 5, 2005

If I salivate 4 times more when I smell chocolate chip cookies baking than I do when I smell fish baking, does that mean that I don't enjoy fish?
posted by willnot at 5:15 PM on July 5, 2005

Oh, and incidentally, if we can conclude that something does not exist as a result of its non-detectability by scientific instruments, what does that really say about God?
posted by Faint of Butt at 5:17 PM on July 5, 2005

I appear to have been overly snarky - in a metafilter post, yet. Who'd a thunk it.

Seriously, though, I admit my tone was angry, but I think it's also unfair to characterize the whole thing merely as Bailey being attacked because people don't like his conclusions. Part of the reason Bailey is so disliked in the trans community is that he's hardly taken the high road himself - many of his attempts to defend his works have contained mischaracterizations of and ad hominem attacks against his critics. His spokestranswoman, W. Arune, went so far as to accuse some of his MTF opponents of being, essentially, just cranky because they were too old to have transitioned properly.

Bailey admits to having simply made up at least one key section of the book, and there's an awful lot of disinterested parties who believe, whatever his conclusions, that his science pretty damn shaky. Among many other things, a lot of his material comes from interviews with people who were desperate to get approval letters for transition surgery from anyone with a Ph.D in Psychology, which he gave them in exchange. And even if they weren't just saying what he wanted them to say, he characterized those who *didn't* say what he wanted them to as liars. Even in this latest study quoted in the NYT, if nothing else, his population sample seems very, very small.

So, I really don't think it's fair to characterize the controversy as nothing but ad hominem attacks against Bailey by those who didn't like his results.
posted by kyrademon at 5:17 PM on July 5, 2005

Faint of Butt, what I've been saying all along. God doesn't exist.

Though I think the response would likely be that we haven't created the right instrument yet.
posted by fenriq at 5:20 PM on July 5, 2005

And if I enjoy oysters more than snails, but still enjoy the eating of snails....oh, never mind.
posted by kalimac at 5:22 PM on July 5, 2005

The details of how the experiment was conducted would also be interesting. I mean, it makes it sound like the films were shown one after the other. So perhaps it's not entirely surprising that maybe some bi men didn't get aroused by the hetero porn - because, hello, I'm still thinking about that gay porn you were showing me a few minutes ago (or vice versa). Because bisexuality isn't a state of constant, equal arousal by both sexes, and has never been claimed to be.

And yes, what sort of porn was it? Because bisexual people have, in general, a wider set of body types they find attractive, in my experience their arousal-triggers tend to focus less on the body itself than on behaviours, presentations, etc... The design of the experiment seems, at least from this report, to be more than a little crude. And not just in a "stick electrodes on my knob and show me smut" sort of way.
posted by flashboy at 5:27 PM on July 5, 2005

I exist.

I've found both men and women sexually arousing for as long as I can remember. For women, that appeal is primarily a visual aesthetic: I have a narrow range of body types capable of sustaining an erection. However, if you are female, I can hate your guts and still enjoy fucking your brains out. Personality DOES matter, but it isn't what makes me hard. At least, not at first. Sometimes, a woman can become attractive to me if I have grown to love her first.

However, for men, personality is almost 100% of the arousal. A scrotum is an ugly sweaty wrinkled sack, with no possibility of aesthetic appeal. I could never fuck an ugly dude, which I know makes me shallow, but the mind is the point of first arousal.

The point is, hook me up as Dr Bailey did and I might get off more on the straight porn versus the gay porn, but that's because you aren't measuring the right thing. In gay porno (heck, in any porno, unless you believe that Woody Allen's The Whores of Mensa is real), the guys aren't reciting Blake or waxing philosophical about Nietzsche, so "wood" isn't going to happen, even if you meet my aesthetic ideal.
posted by Chasuk at 5:45 PM on July 5, 2005

From the New York Times article on a study where they showed men porn:

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.

What KIND of porn? Involving who doing what? I'm broad enough on the het side to get turned on by a lot of the women who become porn stars, but on the homo side I'm very picky about my men: the kind of men I've most often seen in porn flicks, overly muscular, often macho-looking and sometimes rather hairy, just don't interest me. I'll gladly admit that I'm on the straighter side of the continuum, but put me in a room with a guy who's my type and my arousal will be measurable.

Apparently I differ with flashboy in that I've got a narrow set of body-types I find attractive. Dammit.

Anyway, I think studies like this, or ones searching for "the gay brain" or whatever, are a silly waste of time and resources, whatever they hope to find or prove and regardless of how one might use their data. Once you accept "different strokes for different folks", who the hell cares who likes doing what with which sex more and why? If you're producing porn it's market research; if not it's political wankery.
posted by davy at 5:46 PM on July 5, 2005

kyrademon:

Bailey admits to having simply made up at least one key section of the book

Which one? Is there any url or anything I could read? (I've read the book and I'm curious, not accusing you of anything.)

Even in this latest study quoted in the NYT, if nothing else, his population sample seems very, very small.

I don't think 100 people is small for a psychology study. The two I've written code for have had 80 and 160 participants, respectively, and in both cases the researchers gave me the impression that they had more than enough participants to make the statistical extrapolations valid.

Faint of Butt:

this study strictly speaking isn't saying that "bisexual males don't exist"; a more staid writeup would suggest that (a) for homo and hetero males the source of their sexual orientation is pure physical excitement by the appropriate gender and (b) the source of male bisexuality is not that. The suggestion made by the reporter (and presumably the researchers, at least in conversation) is that bisexual males are actually 'faking it', but I don't think the study is actually saying that.

Everyone: I just discovered while digging through things that the complete text of The Man Who Would be Queen is available online, found via Bailey's web page. There's also a bit about the arousal study, though the link he posts to the complete text of the journal article we're currently discussing seems to be dead.
posted by jacobm at 5:48 PM on July 5, 2005

And a 1994 survey by The Advocate, the gay-oriented newsmagazine, found that, before identifying themselves as gay, 40 percent of gay men had described themselves as bisexual.

There are probably about the same number of gay guys who call themselves bi as there are actual bi guys. This will dilute the study results somewhat.
posted by Tlogmer at 5:50 PM on July 5, 2005

And what Flashboy said. (And also, I identify as bi, please don't flame me.)
posted by Tlogmer at 5:52 PM on July 5, 2005

This is interesting if its true, but it raises more questions than it answers and it would be an awful idea to draw too strong a conclusion (such as "no such thing as bisexuals")

still. it's important that work is being done in this area because a better understanding of sexuality is a good thing.
posted by es_de_bah at 6:10 PM on July 5, 2005

this study strictly speaking isn't saying that "bisexual males don't exist"; a more staid writeup would suggest that (a) for homo and hetero males the source of their sexual orientation is pure physical excitement by the appropriate gender and (b) the source of male bisexuality is not that.

... I agree with that. Based on observation and personal experience, I agree assertion (b) one hundred percent. If that had been the conclusion of the study, I would have shrugged and said "So?" But you know, a big part of science is drawing the correct conclusion from your observations, and that's where Bailey fails.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:14 PM on July 5, 2005

and yeah, I think that sexuality has a lot more to do with psychology and culture than this guy seems to take into account.

but finding out which part is biological and which part is psychological and how those two side interact is what we need.
posted by es_de_bah at 6:15 PM on July 5, 2005

How many women are autogynephiliacs?
posted by fleacircus at 6:18 PM on July 5, 2005

Maybe the good doctor just has a lot of bad porn.

While it's entirely likely that most people tend to favor one sex or another, that doesn't invalidate bisexuality at all... and using gradients of the Kinsey scale to say that someone is straight or gay makes no sense. There are a lot of Kinsey 1's out there who are, by his definition, straight... with the possible exception of those moments when they have cock up their arse.

In other words, maybe it's not so much that the people in the survey weren't really bi... maybe they were just picky... or maybe they've even had fewer associations with one sex or another, which would tend to reenforce their level of attraction to one sex or another.

Maybe they should take all those who tested as "says they are bi but are actually straight", lock them in a sauna/spa/outdoor patio facility together for a week or two with free mimosas and suitable protection, and come back and test them again, jus to be sure.
posted by insomnia_lj at 6:22 PM on July 5, 2005

I think the stereotype that bisexuals don't exist comes out of common experiences those of us who came out before the gay 90's had before really coming out. Many of us hedged our bets and declared ourselves bi-- it was a safe way to scope out other guys, and not as frightening as saying, I'll never get married and have kids, when we were in fact gay as geese.

I realize now, that I am a generation out of touch, and a lot of bi-men and women today are in fact more comfortable and in touch with themselves than some exclusively gay or straight people.

It also makes total sense to me as a non-scientist that relationships with the same or opposite sex-- both sexual and romantic-- may be completely different yet equally significant of bisexuals. (I am exclusively attracted to men my own age for relationships, but would probably not choose middle-aged porn. Just being honest).
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 6:24 PM on July 5, 2005

I think the stereotype that bisexuals don't exist comes out of common experiences those of us who came out before the gay 90's had before really coming out. Many of us hedged our bets and declared ourselves bi-- it was a safe way to scope out other guys, and not as frightening as saying, I'll never get married and have kids, when we were in fact gay as geese.

I realize now, that I am a generation out of touch, and a lot of bi-men and women today are in fact more comfortable and in touch with themselves than some exclusively gay or straight people.

It also makes total sense to me as a non-scientist that relationships with the same or opposite sex-- both sexual and romantic-- may be completely different yet equally significant of bisexuals. (I am exclusively attracted to men my own age for relationships, but would probably not choose middle-aged porn. Just being honest).
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 6:24 PM on July 5, 2005

hrmm... Heavy water - do you know what type of porn was used in the female sexual studies?

As I recall from his talk, the stimuli were well controlled for things like content, style, etc. A discrepancy in the content of the male and female stimuli would be the first thing any reviewer would spot, and would be an obvious thing to control for ahead of time, so I can't imagine this is an issue.

heavy water: you've painted a disingenuous picture.

His book has been soundly criticized by the scientific community not because of his conclusions, but because it is indisputably bad science. It's not even contestable.

I'm a bit surprised that you've drawn conclusions about the motivations of its critics without actually reading it.

Well, I'm drawing conclusions based on the number of criticisms I've seen both in person (at the talk I attended) and linked from sites in the FPP. I haven't read the book, and there could be all sorts of things wrong with it from a scientific point of view. But the fact remains that most of the criticisms are qualitative: Bailey said this, I feel differently. I have no vested interest in this one way or the other; Bailey may be a jerk who makes up data or he may not, but the way to determine that is to try and (presumably fail to) replicate his findings. Innocent until proven guilty, no?

As for interpretations of penile plethysmograph measurements, it might be wise to await the independent duplication of the results.

Well, Bailey's group certainly isn't the first to use the PPG. Quite a few other researchers have, and several studies have explicitly demonstrated that the PPG is a reliable measure (do a Medline search). Although it's actually a moot point here, because unreliable measures can't, by definition, correlate with anything. So the fact that Bailey gets a correlation between sexual arousal and sexual preference on the order he does (I recall him showing correlations around .9, which is close to unity) can only imply one of 3 things: (a) the PPG is a reliable measure and is doing a great job measuring what it's supposed to; (b) the result is coincidental (although at the significance level we're talking about, that's highly unlikely); or (c) he made up the results. I think (a) is most plausible, but independent replication and time will tell.
posted by heavy water at 6:27 PM on July 5, 2005

R. Mutt writes "In the new study, a team of psychologists directly measured genital arousal patterns in response to images... um, ... Directly?"

Talk about an instance where measuring an outcome can change it!
posted by clevershark at 6:27 PM on July 5, 2005

davy: Apparently I differ with flashboy in that I've got a narrow set of body-types I find attractive. Dammit.

I just meant that, in the broad scheme of things, fancying body types that can range from from female to male, with all the concomitant genitalia, might be considered by some to be a wider set than average. (Now, a really interesting study would be into which desirable physical features bisexuals "carry over" from one sex to the other, and which they don't.)

Me, I'm actually terribly picky. If they're not an androgynous, seven-nippled amputee with an afro, well, I'm not interested.
posted by flashboy at 6:47 PM on July 5, 2005

This sounds utterly goddamned ridiculous.

What makes you say that? Are you disagreeing with Bailey's conclusions, or are you accusing him of faking the data?

What makes me say that is that it sounds utterly goddamned ridiculous. Not just the conclusions are ridiculous, the methodology used is as well. It doesn't sound even remotely scientific, in the least.
posted by nightchrome at 6:54 PM on July 5, 2005

It's interesting though, how many heterosexuals and homosexuals alike seem to try hard to prove that bisexuals do not and cannot exist. As if doing so will solidify their positions and make them more valid.
posted by nightchrome at 6:57 PM on July 5, 2005

Maybe I'm reading this wrong but I think the devil is in the details here. Seems he's claiming that if you're not turned on by lesbians, then you're not bi but gay. Only a fag wouldn't find chicks doing each other hot. The porn shown was either female exclusive or male exclusive. Okay, male exclusive is kind of gay (or the gay part of bi?) but how is porn with only females heterosexual? Doesn't heterosexuality require both sexes? I think I need to see the porn to determine if this research on a comprehensive pool of 101 Chicagoans and Torontons is really empirical. For scientific purposes only, of course.
posted by Toekneesan at 7:00 PM on July 5, 2005

It doesn't sound even remotely scientific, in the least.

nightchrome: the editors of at least one prestigous psychology journal disagree with you. Something to consider.

Toekneesan: I think the NYT article mentions somewhere that a sizable fraction weren't turned on by any of the porn at all, that might account for your observation.
posted by jacobm at 7:04 PM on July 5, 2005

If bisexuals don't exist, whose cocks am I sucking?
posted by WolfDaddy at 7:09 PM on July 5, 2005

I do not see what everyone is getting so worked up about. It is only the beginning... I am sure this is not the last we have heard of this subject.

Thanks to technology, we are able to study this subject without relying on subjective reporting - especially considering the subject matter - as the only way to gather statistics. The objective evaluation of physiological responses to certain stimuli will give us much more information in the future. This study will probably be considered crude at best in a few years, but you have to start somewhere.
posted by sultan at 7:09 PM on July 5, 2005

I think this guy just likes watching other dudes get wood.
posted by wakko at 7:10 PM on July 5, 2005

Flashboy:
"I just meant that, in the broad scheme of things, fancying body types that can range from from female to male, with all the concomitant genitalia, might be considered by some to be a wider set than average."

AH, I misread you. Now I get it.

"(Now, a really interesting study would be into which desirable physical features bisexuals "carry over" from one sex to the other, and which they don't.)"

Reading that might interest me, I admit, in the way that studies of how people's public social lives varied between Leeds and York over the 18th century. (There seem to have been more private clubs in York because there were more well-to-do and educated people, but circuses did better in Leeds. See J. Jefferson Looney, Cultural Life in the provinces: Leeds and York, 1720-1820, pp. 483-510 of The First Modern Society , Beier, Cannadine and Rosenheim, editors, Cambridge University Press, 1989.)

It's just not something I think society needs to be prioritizing very highly. For me it's the ick factor associated with some people's need to do something about other people's sexual preferences: these studies often wind up as evidence for some scheme to make "the problem" go away.
posted by davy at 7:35 PM on July 5, 2005

So there was "gay" porn and "straight" porn . . . where was the "bi" porn in the study?
posted by Toecutter at 7:39 PM on July 5, 2005

So there was "gay" porn and "straight" porn . . . where was the "bi" porn in the study?

Haven't you been paying attention? It doesn't exist, of course!
posted by odinsdream at 7:47 PM on July 5, 2005

I'm amazed the stufy found any lesbians or bi-women at all... Have you seen lesbian porn? I mean real lesbian porn - not the stuff for men? ZZzzzz...
posted by missbossy at 8:13 PM on July 5, 2005

nightchrome: the editors of at least one prestigous psychology journal disagree with you. Something to consider.

jacobm, given my clearly-stated views on the venerable establishment of psychology in other threads, I don't think this has as much weight as you are expecting it to.

Toekneesan, very important point there. I know a lot of people, myself included, who like women just fine but are not turned on at all by two chicks making out.
posted by nightchrome at 8:28 PM on July 5, 2005

RedEmma writes "as a bi-chick, i'm greatly relieved to know that at least i continue to exist.

"(pinching myself, to make sure.)

"(on the arm, dammit.)"

No such luck, Emma. By the tone of the thread, there seems to be a requirement for independent replication of the experiment - and maybe some more pinching here and there just as a control (after all, you may well exist in the arm but not anywhere else).
posted by nkyad at 9:07 PM on July 5, 2005

So the fact that Bailey gets a correlation between sexual arousal and sexual preference on the order he does (I recall him showing correlations around .9, which is close to unity) can only imply one of 3 things: (a) the PPG is a reliable measure and is doing a great job measuring what it's supposed to; (b) the result is coincidental (although at the significance level we're talking about, that's highly unlikely); or (c) he made up the results. I think (a) is most plausible, but independent replication and time will tell.

But the studies also found that, for women, PPG is incredibly unreliable -- most women respond "bisexually" but don't identify as bi. it would be nicely symetrical if the men who identified as bi didn't respond as bi to PPG.
posted by Tlogmer at 9:10 PM on July 5, 2005

But the studies also found that, for women, PPG is incredibly unreliable -- most women respond "bisexually" but don't identify as bi. it would be nicely symetrical if the men who identified as bi didn't respond as bi to PPG.

Not obvious. The fact that there wasn't the same coupling in females as in males doesn't mean the female instrument isn't reliable. It's likely indicative that females really don't show the same pattern (which, again, wouldn't be that surprising, given the overwhelmingly disproportionate number of males with paraphilias compared to females). A couple of points suggest this: first, the majority of women (including straight women) responded more strongly to female sexual stimuli, suggesting that the instrument does discriminate. Secondly, Bailey's also done one study with transgendered individuals (i.e., men who became women) and found that despite being measured with the female instrument, they show the male pattern of sexual arousal-subjective orientation coupling.

That said, it'll be nice to see how all this shakes out if and when other groups try to replicate the findings with different samples.
posted by heavy water at 9:20 PM on July 5, 2005

A bit of a tangent, but I remember a show on PBS regarding sexuality (no, don't remember what it was called, sorry) that reported on a study done on homophobic men which used the same methods to measure "arousal" when watching explicit imagery (the conclusion of course -- paraphrased -- was that homophobic "straight" men were more likely to be aroused by the imagery than the non-homophobic straight men).

So perhaps this is an accepted method in such research circles?

(And of course, if anyone can refresh my memory on any details of this particular show, I'd appreciate it.)
posted by esoterica at 9:30 PM on July 5, 2005

jacobm: this study strictly speaking isn't saying that "bisexual males don't exist"; a more staid writeup would suggest that (a) for homo and hetero males the source of their sexual orientation is pure physical excitement by the appropriate gender and (b) the source of male bisexuality is not that. The suggestion made by the reporter (and presumably the researchers, at least in conversation) is that bisexual males are actually 'faking it', but I don't think the study is actually saying that.

Well, I'll buy that. I'll also add that in my admittedly subjective experience that my reactions to MOTAS are strongly dependent on which sense is involved. Women look better, but men smell and and sound better.

If I'm faking the dreamy feeling I get around some men, it certainly has fooled me!
posted by KirkJobSluder at 9:31 PM on July 5, 2005

Er, meant "explicit male imagery," of course
posted by esoterica at 9:31 PM on July 5, 2005

I'm a transsexual. My hackles start raising when people start asking questions about why I am the way I am. When it's motivated by honest, open, pure, polite curiosity, I try to answer to the best of my ability. Bailey's research, though, seems aimed at illegitimizing a big part of who I am, and I just do not abide that kind of thing. It's people like Bailey who make me suspicious of people who ask that question in the first place.

Personally, I think that everyone is bisexual, though to different extents, and with the addition of socially-sanctioned blinders that make life and sexuality simpler and easier for most of us.
posted by jiawen at 10:04 PM on July 5, 2005

The constant need to pigeon-hole people, classifying and stratifying, it's just pointless. Sexuality is a great big fantastic continuum, within which we all fluctuate (no matter how little) all the time.
posted by nightchrome at 10:08 PM on July 5, 2005

heavy water:Well, I'm drawing conclusions based on the number of criticisms I've seen both in person (at the talk I attended) and linked from sites in the FPP. I haven't read the book, and there could be all sorts of things wrong with it from a scientific point of view. But the fact remains that most of the criticisms are qualitative: Bailey said this, I feel differently.

Look, you don't need to read criticisms with this book. It's nothing more than hearsay as filtered through the biased perspective of one individual. Just read the book. He makes the basis of his claims the people he meets at bars. There are no citations. This is not what we call science: his book wasn't denounced by Eli Coleman, President of HBIGDA, as "Bad Science" for nothing.

I have no vested interest in this one way or the other; Bailey may be a jerk who makes up data or he may not, but the way to determine that is to try and (presumably fail to) replicate his findings. Innocent until proven guilty, no?

Um, his book proves pretty conclusively that he is guilty. As do his writings. As far as I can tell, he's got an agenda, and that is to pave the way for gay eugenics: science be damned. If people don't naturally divide into Straight, Gay, and Women, then just make things up.

I would hope that our collective resistance to junk science would be better. But, then, the Bell Curve was a best seller, we're actually at war with Iraq with no WMDs to be found, and still debating over the truth of global warming. Meh. I give up.
posted by cytherea at 10:12 PM on July 5, 2005

So if you don't like porn -- or are a bit freaked by the laboratory setting -- does that make you asexual?
posted by clevershark at 10:12 PM on July 5, 2005

clevershark, don't be preposterous, everyone likes porn. How could you not?
posted by nightchrome at 10:15 PM on July 5, 2005

Perhaps it's time people recognized that the gay community has biases and prejudices, just like any other community.

One of my brothers is gay, and he used to date a pre-op transsexual who had breast implants. You would be surprised to hear how negatively that sort of thing is viewed in the gay male community, apparently, and that was when he lived in San Francisco -- certainly a place where one would expect acceptance rather than judgement.
posted by clevershark at 10:16 PM on July 5, 2005

I'm just guessing here, but I have a feeling that some gay people have a problem with bisexual people because it kind of muddies the water where that whole "sexual preference is 100% genetic" argument is concerned, and that's a somewhat sacred cow.
There's also the "you must just be too cowardly to come out all the way" factor, I'd imagine. I've certainly known people who tried to "fix" bisexuals, and the whole thing just seemed as wrong as those christians who try to "cure" homosexuality.
posted by nightchrome at 10:27 PM on July 5, 2005

jacobm - I believe the section in question is the concluding scene of the book, in which he describes an accidental meeting with Danny Ryan, an effeminate boy. He'd been discussing Danny with Danny's mother, but never met Danny himself. He describes an entire scene in which he runs into Danny's family at a graduation ceremony, and describes Danny physically, what he was wearing, what he said, etc. Based on the fact that Danny puts an emphasis on the word "men" when he says "Mummy, I need to go to the men's room", Bailey expresses his belief that Danny will grow up to be a gay man, rather than a transsexual.

The whole story apparently struck some people as kind of odd - it does read strangely - and somewhat reminiscent of another story about a completely different child in a different book he had referenced. At one point, someone asked him about it, and he apparently said, "I made it up." When he was asked again for confirmation, he is reported as having said "I said I made up that final scene. It never happened."

There's a link about it somewhere in the fpp ... I think the link on the word "before", in one of the subsequent links about the problems with the book. I can poke around for it if you like.

As for the bisexuality study -

Possibly that population is sufficient for a psychological study. My work puts me more contact with information about clinical drug trials, which usually run to thousands and thousands of participants. So the "100" number struck me as kind of small, but that could just be my perspective.

As for the "prestigious psychology journal" comment ... well, I'm not a psychologist, but a neuropsychologist friend of mine, commenting on the article, mentioned that "Psychological Science is not usually a journal that warrants a mention in the NYT." Make of that whatever you will.
posted by kyrademon at 10:36 PM on July 5, 2005

Why would anyone study transexual women? They're pretty boring really. All men wear clothes that are basicaly gender neutral, so 'transexual' women don't appear particuarly werid.
posted by delmoi at 11:05 PM on July 5, 2005

Look, you don't need to read criticisms with this book. It's nothing more than hearsay as filtered through the biased perspective of one individual. Just read the book.

Look, there are any number of things I'd read ahead of that book. I'm not close to being sufficiently interested in the issue to go out and read it. Reading someone's precis or critique, on the other hand, takes a few minutes.

Um, his book proves pretty conclusively that he is guilty. As do his writings. As far as I can tell, he's got an agenda, and that is to pave the way for gay eugenics: science be damned. If people don't naturally divide into Straight, Gay, and Women, then just make things up.

Well, I reserve judgment on his book, though I have no problem taking your word for it. But again, my point was that your feelings about his book shouldn't have any bearing on the evaluation of the peer-reviewed article in a high-impact psychology journal. At least two or three people who are much better qualified than you to critique the work reported on in the NYT have recommended publication. You haven't so much as touched on any substantive flaws in the work. We're supposed to dismiss the article out of hand because you don't like his book?

I would hope that our collective resistance to junk science would be better.

I think it's unfortunate that one lousy book is enough to get you to label all of a researcher's work as 'junk science'. I can think off-hand of several scientists who've written pretty terrible pop psych books but do fantastic research. I confess I don't really understand (or share, apparently) your conception of science. In my book, Bailey's results have been peer-reviewed and appear methodologically rigorous. They await further corroboration from other labs. You, conversely, seem to be saying that because he wrote one crappy unscientific book, we shouldn't even listen to what he has to say. I disagree. I think it's entirely possible to think someone's a jerk and even a liar while still allowing that he or she can produce a high quality of research.
posted by heavy water at 11:09 PM on July 5, 2005

Hooray! It's him! I had an email conversation with him at the time of the original tranny controversy, and he is the sort of person it is impossible to argue with. If you disagree with him you're lying, insane, or an idiot.

He's a fuckwit with an agenda, and his books and his "science" aren't worth spending time on. Ignore him and he just might go away.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 11:35 PM on July 5, 2005

heavy water -

I actually think his past work is good reason to be suspicious of the present study. Here's why:

Someone publishes a book which, essentially, claims that there are no male transsexuals, as the word is generally understood - only gay men (or occasionally straight ones) who are confused, insane, or lying.

The book turns out to contain dubious science, invented scenes, untrustworthy sources, and ignores any information that might contradict his premise.

Later, the same man publishes a study in which, essentially, he claims that there are no male bisexuals, as the word is generally understood - only gay men (or occasionally straight ones) who are confused, insane, or lying.

You see my problem here? It makes me highly suspicious of his data and his interpretation. If he didn't want me to be suspicious, then he should of damn well had better science in his last book, in which made similar claims.

It almost amuses me that he has the gall to accuse his opponents of making ad hominem attacks against him, when they're mostly attacking his methodology and he, in turn, is mostly accusing them of being ... well, confused, insane, or liars. Very few people have said "Bailey is a poo-head, and therefore his science is bad." What they have said is, "Bailey's science is bad, and therefore he is a poo-head." That's kind of the opposite of an ad hominem attack, really. I'll admit to being snarky, sure, but most of the accusations being made here are about his *work*, or his defense of it.
posted by kyrademon at 12:06 AM on July 6, 2005

I actually think his past work is good reason to be suspicious of the present study.

You see my problem here? It makes me highly suspicious of his data and his interpretation.

Well, you have every right to be suspicious. That seems pretty reasonable. Knowing someone's produced dubious material in the past is a pretty good reason to be extra careful about their present results. But again, it's not, by itself, a reason to reject what's currently on the table. I.e., it's ok to say, "well, we know he's put out subpar work before, so let's take a really close look at this," and then enumerate methodological or conceptual problems with the article. It doesn't seem ok (to me at least) to say "oh, poo, he's a jerk, let's reject it without review."

Science isn't an all or none proposition--lots of people argue for major theories that turn out to be mostly wrong but partly right. It's entirely possible Bailey is a jerk, a cheat, wrong about most things, but right about this. At the very least, when a paper is submitted to a journal like Psych Science, it deserves to be peer reviewed just like any other. To do otherwise would be a disservice not only to the individual in question, but also to the greater scientific community. Sometimes bad people churn out good research. Sometimes even bad people who've churned out mostly bad research put out good research. I'm not in a position to determine whether Bailey is any/all of the above; I'm just saying--let the article stand on its own merit.
posted by heavy water at 12:26 AM on July 6, 2005

heavy water: to call his previous research "subpar work" is being far too kind to it. He came up with his conclusion and found, forced, or fabricated evidence to fit. Anything that did not fit was either quietly ignored or loudly denounced as being the work either of liars out to discredit his research or of delusional children desperate to validate their mischosen identities.

We don't trust him, not because we disagree with his conclusions, but because he has a history of fakery.

He's not the boy who cried wolf who just might be right this time. He's not the slightly incompetent scientist who doesn't know how to properly formulate his ideas. He's a charlatan with a taste for the media circus.
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 1:02 AM on July 6, 2005

Even with the full text available, no one reads it. We're all doomed.
posted by perianwyr at 4:04 AM on July 6, 2005

kyrademon -

As for the "prestigious psychology journal" comment ... well, I'm not a psychologist, but a neuropsychologist friend of mine, commenting on the article, mentioned that "Psychological Science is not usually a journal that warrants a mention in the NYT." Make of that whatever you will.

Could be. My only point in making that comment was in response to nightchrome's "not remotely scientific" remark -- I'd hope that the editors of any reasonable science journal would at least be able to tell whether a work was "remotely scientific" or not! Even if the journal isn't top tier, it's probably got better qualifications than "has a name and a metafilter account" to be speaking about the scientific merit of a piece of work.

cytheria -

Just read the book. He makes the basis of his claims the people he meets at bars. There are no citations.

When I read the book that struck me as being because it was intended as a popular press book, not a standalone scientific work. I think he mentions this in the book itself at least a few times. And the "people I met in bars" shtick seems to me really more to set up arguments rather than to prove them: he's constantly referring to, but not formally citing, work that purportedly establishes the claims he's making. It's funny, my impression of the book was that he was going a bit out of his way to give the reader a good sense of how one might try to really test the veracity of claims about human sexuality, as opposed to somehow ignoring the need.

I haven't tracked down those references, nor have I gone over the book with a fine-toothed comb to make sure every substantive claim is backed up somewhere (and anyway I'm not expert enough to read the real literature accurately) but your blanket denunciation seems overly broad and pat. The guy is a full professor at a pretty good psychology department, you've got to at least give him credit for generally having some idea how the science of psychology is conducted.

As far as I can tell, he's got an agenda, and that is to pave the way for gay eugenics: science be damned.

WHA??? Sorry, but the NWU sex lab, where Bailey works, is an extremely sexually diverse place. And whatever you think about the science, the researchers there, Bailey included, have never given me any impression that they're anything other than genuinely fascinated by the scope and diversity of human sexuality.
posted by jacobm at 5:34 AM on July 6, 2005

jacobm: Could be. My only point in making that comment was in response to nightchrome's "not remotely scientific" remark -- I'd hope that the editors of any reasonable science journal would at least be able to tell whether a work was "remotely scientific" or not! Even if the journal isn't top tier, it's probably got better qualifications than "has a name and a metafilter account" to be speaking about the scientific merit of a piece of work.

Some of us who see how peer review really works don't have many illusions about the ways in which bogus science can sneak in on occasion.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 6:18 AM on July 6, 2005

KirkJobSluder - I've both reviewed and been reviewed academic papers in my life, and I certainly know that bogus claims can sneak through. But in my experience the filter is really pretty good, and certainly things that seem "not remotely scientific" aren't going to be accepted. Now, things that sound scientific but can't back their claims up are a whole different ballgame ... really my whole point in saying that was just to counter nightchrome's unsupported and seemingly unsupportable "this obviously is not science" claim. I'm not trying to say that the fact it's been in a journal means it's good or true. Hell, I've had things accepted in journals, so I think I understand the depths to which otherwise reputable establishments can sink on occasion ... :)
posted by jacobm at 6:28 AM on July 6, 2005

jacobm: Certainly. I'm just feeling here that the "it's good, because it is peer reviewed" is as much a fallacy as "It's bad, because this previously published work is bad."

Personally, these results out of context don't bother me much because I've long held the view that human sexuality is quite a bit more complex than erectile response to nudie pictures, so the fact that he found high reliability for something that I consider to have poor construct validity in talking about my love life and history isn't that important to me.

However, I think there is a legitimate concern on how this research might be used.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 6:46 AM on July 6, 2005

When I read the book that struck me as being because it was intended as a popular press book, not a standalone scientific work. I think he mentions this in the book itself at least a few times.

It was originally touted as a work of science. Since it's received criticism, it's been promoted a bit differently.

And the "people I met in bars" shtick seems to me really more to set up arguments rather than to prove them: he's constantly referring to, but not formally citing, work that purportedly establishes the claims he's making.

The book rests entirely on two dated publications by Blanchard. Blanchard's findings have not been duplicated elsewhere.
posted by cytherea at 9:40 AM on July 6, 2005

I think there is good reason to be skeptical when the results of one methodology fails to support the results of another methodology. On the one hand, we have rich studies of sexual history and interviews about sexual orientation which suggests that some people are comfortably aroused and sexually active with members of both sexes. On the other hand, we have a laboratory study which suggests that sexuality in men is polar.

To me, this suggests that there is a fairly significant theoretical gap between Bailey's methods, and the studies of actual sexual behavior. (Even granting Bailey the benefit of the doubt.)
posted by KirkJobSluder at 10:50 AM on July 6, 2005

Bisexual's may not exist? Fine, whatever. I dislike being pigeon-holed and use the term bisexual only because it's the "accepted" word. I'm attracted to the person, not what may or may not be dangling between his or her legs.

So ..um.. if I'm turned on by ..erm.. gay male-on-male ..uh.. porn, what does that make me? A gay man in a woman's body?
posted by deborah at 10:51 AM on July 6, 2005

This just demonstrates the common misconception that people who identify as bisexual have no sexual preference. Bisexual (as defined in almost all of the *reputable* research of the last 100 years) simply means that a person is *capable* of being attracted to - and fairly easily reacts sexually to - other persons of either gender. It does *not* mean that the person has absolutely neutral preferences. Most bisexual people prefer either a person of the opposite or the same gender 75%-90% of the time. Which is exactly what this "research" seems to show, anyway.
The problem with labels is they just don't work - humans are too complex.
posted by sixdifferentways at 11:07 AM on July 6, 2005

The guy is a full professor at a pretty good psychology department, you've got to at least give him credit for generally having some idea how the science of psychology is conducted.

You would think so. His university thought otherwise when subsequent to an ethics investigation it required him to resign as the department head.

But this is an appeal to authority. Joseph Nicolosi also has a Ph.D., but I don't think many people take his quixotic crusade to have gay people reclassified as mental ill seriously.
posted by cytherea at 11:33 AM on July 6, 2005

Ok, I'm a slight bit baffled on this:

"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....

Yet researchers were unable to produce direct evidence of bisexual arousal patterns in men, said Dr. J. Michael Bailey, a professor of psychology at Northwestern and the new study's senior author.

From experience, "senior author" could just mean, "sat on the student's advisory committee."
posted by KirkJobSluder at 11:44 AM on July 6, 2005

Not from personal experience I might add. My home department is actually pretty good about that.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 12:00 PM on July 6, 2005

So ..um.. if I'm turned on by ..erm.. gay male-on-male ..uh.. porn, what does that make me? A gay man in a woman's body?

No, just very, very sick. . .




(just kidding)

I wonder if there is a classification in this for men who are *recreationally bisexual*. Who enjoy playing around but could never see themselves as emotionally intimate or living with a man.
posted by Danf at 12:58 PM on July 6, 2005

There is no "bisexual."

What do these people do get up in the morning, flip a coin and say "Heads I want hairpie, tails, it's balls across the nose..."

/diceman
posted by jonmc at 1:44 PM on July 6, 2005

how can you postulate the bisexuals do not exist? no amount of research can justify it. I, myself define myself by percentages so dumbfucks who try to say youre confused understand: 40% of me is attracted to men and 60% of me is attracted to women. I'm not confused. I know what I like. I like both--but women more of the time. So if you want to get nitpicky, i'm more straight than i am gay--that means nothing, though.

why do people think you have to choose one or the other? is this feudal fucking england?

it's so condescending when people try to "explain" what you are. I'm not in the midst of inner struggle, i have no skeletons in the closet (related to this)...it's the very simple quote: "a bisexual can reach down anyone's pants and be happy with what they find."

what kind of self-righteous fuck tries to do this? I realise it is crucial to question everything, but this is just stupid.
posted by Lockeownzj00 at 3:13 PM on July 6, 2005

I think studies like this, or ones searching for "the gay brain" or whatever, are a silly waste of time and resources, whatever they hope to find or prove and regardless of how one might use their data ...

It's interesting though, how many heterosexuals and homosexuals alike seem to try hard to prove that bisexuals do not and cannot exist. As if doing so will solidify their positions and make them more valid ...

The constant need to pigeon-hole people, classifying and stratifying, it's just pointless. Sexuality is a great big fantastic continuum, within which we all fluctuate (no matter how little) all the time ...

Whether continuum, anarchy, or rigid hierarchy, I'm also not sure what we're supposed to do with this information. Knowledge for knowledge's sake is interesting, I suppose, but this research seems like a waste.

If you're producing porn it's market research; if not it's political wankery.

Hear, hear. Can anyone defend this research as being important? Am I missing something?
posted by mrgrimm at 5:16 PM on July 6, 2005

cytherea:

It was originally touted as a work of science. Since it's received criticism, it's been promoted a bit differently.

I dunno how it was advertised, I'm just saying what I read. It never seemed like it was trying to be a science book as much as a reporting-of-science book to me.

The book rests entirely on two dated publications by Blanchard. Blanchard's findings have not been duplicated elsewhere.

Ah. I didn't know anything about the work on which it rests. If that's true it sounds like a big problem. But that is in no way the same criticism as saying his book is only evidenced by anecdotes about guys at bars, don't you think?

But this is an appeal to authority. Joseph Nicolosi also has a Ph.D., but I don't think many people take his quixotic crusade to have gay people reclassified as mental ill seriously.

Look, Bailey is not on any kind of crusade, he's just got an unhealthy penchant for trying to stir stuff up with remarkably un-PC claims backed up by not quite enough evidence. And remember I'm saying all of this in context of people claiming not just that his science is deceptive and bad but that it fails basic elementary-school tests for accuracy. Is Bailey a bad scientist? Possibly. But it's insulting and completely unfounded to say that he doesn't even know that you can't use anecdotes to prove hypotheses or that his studies aren't remotely scientific. Hysterical hyperbole on the part his enemies make neutral bystanders tend to think he may be on to something.

Anyway, to bring back the actual topic of the link: it seems like the criticisms in this thread of the bisexuality work are: 1. Mike Bailey wrote a bad book once (though somebody just pointed out that Garulf Rieger is actually the author of the present study). 2. Bisexuals exist, duh. The obvious question is: how do we reconcile the observation that straight and gay men are physically aroused by porn featuring participants of the appropriate gender, but bisexual men are only aroused by porn featuring one of the two genders? Why is it that for monosexual men arousal is directly connected to orientation while for bisexual men arousal is not? Furthermore, why do bisexual men's arousal patterns "look like" either straight or gay arousal patterns? Why are (75% of) bisexuals not physically aroused by women and physically aroused by men, while all monosexuals are physically aroused by the gender their orientation prefers? These data seem to suggest that whatever male bisexuality is, it cannot be the same sort of phenonenon as monosexuality, because it doesn't work the same way. It also certainly seems difficult to reconcile with the "sexuality is a complete spectrum" argument, at least insofar as physical arousal relates to sexuality. And all of this is in the context of an even more interesting question: why do we not see the same effects in women? Why is it that women of all sexual orientations become physically aroused at nearly the same level to the non-preferred genders, and why is it different for men and women? These are the obvious questions this study raises, and they seem really fascinating, and neither of them has anything (directly) to do with either of the two responses we've seen so far. Also, none of them are predicated on the idea that male bisexuality "doesn't exist." So I want to know: what are the answers?
posted by jacobm at 5:46 PM on July 6, 2005

Heavy Water: Miscommunication, sorry. I didn't mean the instrumentation was unreliable, period; I meant it was "unreliable" by your purported standard for reliability among men. If the experiment says such different things when applied to people of different genders, why should it say identical things when applied to men of differing sexualities?
posted by Tlogmer at 5:48 PM on July 6, 2005

jacobm - You make very good points. I will readily admit I don't know the answers to them.

To be honest, half of my problem with the bisexuality study could have simply been the way it was reported. I see an article entitled "Gay, Straight, or Lying" in the NYT and it sets off all kinds of anger bells in my mind.

Is that fair to the study? Possibly not. Anger at political and cultural misinterpretation of science is, I think, valid, but is just if not more likely to really be the fault of the NYT as the scientists. But when the NYT is the filter through which you view the study, it can become difficult to tell the conclusions of the reporter from the conclusions of the researcher.

Add to that Bailey's association with the project - whatever it really was - and I immediately think, "Oh good god. Is he gearing up to do a hatchet job on male bisexuals the same way he did (in my opinion) on male transsexuals?" His connection to the project *does* color my opinion of it, because of my distrust of him based on his past works.

In all honesty, I don't think that's an invalid opinion. Bailey has given me *reason* not to trust his science - either his data or his interpretations. His name on a project automatically makes me suspicious of it. And I don't think that's particularly unfair.

This could be good science or it could be lousy science. The (again in my opinion) invalid conclusions could be only those of a bad science reporter (and god knows there are plenty of those), or the strained theory of the researchers themselves. But my distrust doesn't come from nowhere.

Frankly, if this is replicated by people who have nothing to do with Bailey, especially if it's presented in a way that doesn't imply the researchers have lept to ludicrous conclusions, I'll probably be fairly interested in what it says about the questions you present.
posted by kyrademon at 2:23 AM on July 7, 2005

jacobm: 2. Bisexuals exist, duh. The obvious question is: how do we reconcile the observation that straight and gay men are physically aroused by porn featuring participants of the appropriate gender, but bisexual men are only aroused by porn featuring one of the two genders? Why is it that for monosexual men arousal is directly connected to orientation while for bisexual men arousal is not? Furthermore, why do bisexual men's arousal patterns "look like" either straight or gay arousal patterns? Why are (75% of) bisexuals not physically aroused by women and physically aroused by men, while all monosexuals are physically aroused by the gender their orientation prefers?

Well, all of this is pending replication of course. But I think some possible answers to those questions have been discussed, in summary here are my points: a) many bisexual men and women describe differences in their sexual attractions to MOTAS. b) visual pornography does not hit the full spectrum of sensory channels. c) according to the reports, both treatments produced arousal to some degree. d) dimensions such as intimacy and trust are not involved in this study. e) response to porn can be a learned and conditioned behavior.

These data seem to suggest that whatever male bisexuality is, it cannot be the same sort of phenonenon as monosexuality, because it doesn't work the same way. It also certainly seems difficult to reconcile with the "sexuality is a complete spectrum" argument, at least insofar as physical arousal relates to sexuality.

Well, that's my point. To what degree is it reasonable to reduce sexuality to physical arousal? I don't think these studies say much about "monosexuality" myself.

In other word's I already know that my response to nudie pictures is stronger in looking at women than at men. However, I find this little fact to be trivial in regards to how I define my sexual orientation.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 7:20 AM on July 7, 2005

jacobm, I agree that the book is written as a popular, accessible, work. However, the press release from the National Academies Press states: Based on his original research, Bailey's book is grounded firmly in science.*, which also happens to be on the book jacket.

So, to clarify, his research consisted of talking to nine transsexuals whom he met in bars and gave letters of recommendation to for surgery without a license and without informing them of their status as research subjects, and the uncorroborated work of Blanchard.

Oddly, in the book, subtitled The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism, he repeatedly refers to transsexual "research subjects", but later claims he had never considered Anjelica et al. research subjects and that I was writing about my own life experiences among transsexual women. (Of course, in the book he also insists on calling them transsexual men, which is not in keeping with current practice and is less than polite.)

I can't support the claim that Bailey is on a crusade, I was just addressing the fallaciousness of an appeal to authority with a counter example. However, the Southern Poverty Law Center does make that claim. His paper on Parental Selection of Children's Sexual Orientation (*cough* gay eugenics *cough*) is perhaps worth a look in this regard. (Apologies for the google cache, the original appears to be down. It's in PubMed, if you've got a subscription.)

Concerning his recent work, which appears to be a rehash of his earlier studies, I'm a bit more hesitant to discuss, because it hasn't been published yet. I will say that it's a difficult subject area given the specificity and diversity of arousal (for example, people who favor S&M will probably be aroused by images of those types of activities regardless of the sex of the participants). There do appear to be a very large number of people who claim to be bisexual. I would tend to accept the self report of their feelings in the absence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

If his claims are supported, then it would provide significant insight into human sexuality. But rather than demonstrating the non-existence of male bisexuality, it would seem to point out that there may be more to human attraction and desire than arousal. The fact that many bisexual people report split preferences of 3:2 and 4:1, in agreement with the results, suggests that the key insight is the sexual asymmetry of arousal. But without looking at the data it's just so many pin angles.

*Note that the first sentence of this blurb is "Gay. Straight. Or lying". Odd, that.
posted by cytherea at 7:57 AM on July 7, 2005

I also think the real risk of this kind of work is a theraputic model that treats bisexual men as needing to make a decision between competing orientations.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 8:09 AM on July 7, 2005

Similar studies that are undertaken in the near future, whose subjects are kids who've never known a world without an Internet-enabled computer in their rooms, should prove to be very interesting. Because, like, old people seem to think that porn is really something special.

They should take a room full of differently-sexual people and show them Goatse.
posted by kevspace at 9:19 AM on July 7, 2005

cytherea: about your comments in regards to Bailey's book, thanks for the info about the research aspect. I've become interested enough that I'm going to try to get the other side of the story from somebody at NWU psych; I'll post back here if I'm able.

About the sexual selection paper, thanks for the pointer, no need to put *cough* marks around the gay eugenics phrase; that's what the paper's about, and it says so. Honestly, though I can't say I agree with the paper, it strikes me as essentially an attempt to stir up the hornet's nest with a shocking opinion just to see what'll happen, and that's pretty much how I think of the Queen book as well.

Concerning his recent work [...] I will say that it's a difficult subject area given the specificity and diversity of arousal (for example, people who favor S&M will probably be aroused by images of those types of activities regardless of the sex of the participants).

Now that you mention it, I remember a conversation I had a while back with one of the people involved about the experiments where he was telling me about the huge difficulties they were having finding porn that "matched up" so that the male and female films the participants watched would be as close as possible with the exception of gender. I don't know whether they succeeded, but if I'm remembering correctly they were at least highly aware of the need to control for these things.

There do appear to be a very large number of people who claim to be bisexual. I would tend to accept the self report of their feelings in the absence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Well, sure, but the study is about directly measuring their arousal levels, and the question is "why do bisexual males have arousal patterns that don't match their stated preferences when straight and gay males do?" I don't think anyone would seriously claim that this proves bisexual males don't really exist (that doesn't even make any sense), but it certainly suggests that the phenomenon of male bisexuality is something different in kind from male hetero- or homosexuality.
posted by jacobm at 9:52 PM on July 7, 2005

"If bisexuals don't exist, whose cocks am I sucking?"

wolfdaddy, that is CLASSIC.
posted by JonasParker at 11:38 AM on July 11, 2005