First published August 3, 2005, in the Chicago Free
Press.
Most of us realize that there are many people who have had sex
with both sexes but that that does not necessarily means they feel
equal desire for both sexes. As Masters and Johnson wryly observed,
"The label of bisexual often means whatever the user wishes it to
mean."
Now a new study published in Psychological Science by
Northwestern University psychologist J. Michael Bailey and two
Ph.D. candidates claims to advance science by reporting that none
of the men in their study of male bisexuals experienced "strong"
desire for both sexes and that most experienced much stronger
sexual arousal by men than women.
Whether or not Bailey's conclusions are true, the study fails to
demonstrate them effectively. Bailey has repeatedly in the past
employed problematic research procedures and this study is no
exception.
Bailey and his team recruited 33 "bisexuals" as well as control
groups of homosexuals and heterosexuals by advertising in the gay
and "alternative" press. They then showed all three groups of men
"several" two-minute-long erotic films, including two of two men
having sex and two of two women having sex. The subjects' genital
arousal was determined by a device placed around the penis that
measured any increased circumference. Bailey says, "For men arousal
is orientation."
It turned out that one-third of each group of subjects had no
significant genital arousal at all from the films, which means that
either they had no sexual orientation or else the technique for
testing orientation was flawed. But Bailey ignored that
possibility, simply eliminated the non-responders and used the 22
bisexual who did have an arousal response.
It also turned out too that three of the 25 gay men who had
measurable genital arousal were more aroused by the female films
than the male films. Bailey should conclude ("arousal is
orientation") that they were heterosexual but does not and does not
say why. This interesting fact is buried in a footnote in a
manuscript version of the study but I missed it in the uncorrected
page proofs Bailey kindly provided.
In any case, the final result was that although all the bisexual
men reported equal subjective (mental) arousal to both types of
films, all of them "had much greater genital arousal from one sex
than to the other" and three quarters of the 22 men had stronger
genital arousal from the all-male films than the all-female
films.
It is noticeable that there is no mention of heterosexual films
- a man having sex with a woman. The study assumes that a film of
two women having sex will always generate a heterosexual arousal
response but offers no evidence or argument for the claim. No doubt
some men are titillated by lesbian sex but whether it is as
uniformly effective a heterosexual arousal agent as a heterosexual
film seems questionable.
Some bisexual men, for instance, are far more interested in
their own performance, their impact on the other person, than the
gender of the partner. Masters and Johnson call them "ambisexuals"
and C. A. Tripp mentions that some researchers describe them -
somewhat inaccurately - as ready to "stick it in anywhere." If such
men are to be aroused by brief films it would more likely be one of
a man having sex with another person, male or female, than by a
film lacking any male participant. This could help explain the
greater number of men aroused by the all-male films.
Since the bisexual men did report substantially equal subjective
(mental) arousal to both types of films, someone might wonder if
two-minute films were long enough to generate genital arousal
particularly for the female films since they presumably did not
involve specific arousal cues such as copulatory activity. As
psychologist Murray Davis points out, the move from everyday life
to erotic reality can take time, the right mental set, and the
right cues.
Finally one might wonder if the recruitment ads were specific
enough. If Bailey had advertised for men with "equal sexual desire"
for men and women he might have obtained a more interesting study
group. As it was, he defined "bisexuals" as people with Kinsey
ratings of 2, 3 and 4 thus including people with stronger
heterosexual responses (2s) and stronger homosexual responses
(4s).
One might also wonder if most of the bisexuals solicited through
ads in gay publications might lean toward the gay side of
bisexuality - which could be why they were reading gay publications
and saw the ad. That in turn might help explain the larger number
of bisexuals who were more aroused by males than females.
These and related difficulties lead to me wonder why Bailey
continues to try to do sex research when he demonstrates so little
understanding of the human psychology involved in sex and sexual
arousal and seems so unself-critical about research designs that
include sample bias, dubious testing procedures, built-in
assumptions, unaccountable anomalies, etc. Whatever he is doing, it
is not psychology and it is not science.