Bisexuality: images and perceptions

[Dash]

Originally Posted by archyboi

But here's the REALLY interesting result. Of the self-identified bi males only a couple responded equally to both female/female & male/male stimuli. All of the remainder responded exclusively to the male/male stimuli and NOT at all to the female/female stimuli.

Hi Kev,

In general I like your response and the weight you give to research. With this issue though, I wonder if the research really provides a fair indication of an individual's complete sexuality. A physical response to gender-specific/exclusive erotic stimulus (images, I'm assuming?) cannot exhaust the range of attraction that a man feels towards another person. Also, erotic imagery is not the only, nor the most important mechanism of arousal. The physical approach of the lover's beloved and the intimate touch they exchange is a stimulus that I imagine is not represented by this study.

Not only so, but one might consider the possibility that a bisexual male is aroused differently for each gender. It is sometimes said that women are more emotionally aroused than visually, and men more visually than emotionally. Perhaps for some, arousal can be activated in a bi-, or multi-modal way—sometimes visual…sometimes emotional...sometimes who knows?

We’re very complex beings.

[archyboi]

Well I didn't describe all the methodology and mechanics nor the background theorization. That's why I want everyone to read the book.

The point is that males are far more visual and bimodal than females.

The stimuli was video/audio of soft-core porn with nudity, heavy kissing and making out -- no sex. The videos were set up this way. Two males, blank, non-sexual neutral imagery, blank, two females, blank, non-sexual neutral imagery, blank, two different males, blank, non-sexual neutral imagery, blank, two different females and so on.

The readings of the plethsmography sphygmomanometer devices are highly sensitive and accurate. There is no way to hide from or fool them. It's called the sexual lie detector and these studies were more to determine falsification of actual arrousal patterns than strict classification of sexual identity.

Once again the point is that males tend to be more categorically bimodal and females not.

I really want to hear about bisexual males' experience though. I'm not cutting off the possiblity just stating the facts as they are known.

It doesn't really matter anyways. What's important is that every person is precious and valuable exactly the way they are. As long as everyone holds to their truth authentically and gives that out and demands that in return then whom ever anyone is attracted to sexually is nobody else's business than those involved. Everyone deserves the dignity to be themsleves completely without denigration, disparagement, discrimination or invalidation of any kind. Everyone is entitled to affirmation and validation without reservation.

This might be an interesting discussion but never doubt that I don't hold those ideals to be paramount. So I might give my view BUT that view is never a sanction to be used to hurt or invalidate anyone's experience of who they know themselves to be as long as they are true to themsleves and everyone around them -- you know, Honour Bright.

Does this make sense?

BTW: love the sliver surfer avatar but too bad the movie sucked so bad, eh?

--kev

[paul]

Kev,
No dis taken .

You'll note that I put tbt (the bi thing) in past tense.

Okay, lets see here. In second grade I had a crush on Mary Lou, and Gary and Garry. Fifth grade was Susan and Danny, but this one is suspect. I started buttoning my sweater like Susan did, like girls did, in imitation...what was that about? In sixth grade there was Ricky and Rita. I cried like a baby when Ricky got another friend. At age 12 there was Mark and gee, I can't remember her name. I slept over at Marks all the time and was always more interested in him than he in me. At 13 there was Harold and Amy. At 14 I was more aware and became a Christian, the boy thing started getting repressed. There was Sharon. At 14 I had my first romantic type, okay wet dream...sigh, it was of Randy. He kissed me. Damn, I still get a little stirred thinking about it even now. That was a shock, Christians don't have those kinds of dreams. Up till then I didn't really connect any of this or see myself as having attraction to the same sex, I spent my high school years fantasizing about guys and repenting, but also liked two girls and ended up marrying one of them.

My particular form of Christianity considered gay unacceptable, so marriage was my only option for relationship (read "sex") so I married at 21, a virgin. My wife is the only woman I have ever kissed or been with. It's kind of funny, I never actually proposed to my wife, God gave us permission to marry. At 26 I had my first experience with a guy, and it was down hill for years after that, I was hooked, I substituted sex for what I really wanted but couldn't have: a whole romantic relationship with all the fixens.

It's really hard to say Kev, I can more than just "perform" with my wife, but have to admit, my biggest turn on with her is giving her pleasure. So, maybe I've never been "bi," but just really friendly. We remain pretty active together and I am now celibate with guys.

So, while I have sexual experience with one woman and several guys, I only have romantic experience with my wife. I have never had the opportunity to be in a complete relationship with a guy, so I don't know how it would go.
In my mind, I am mostly gay and identify as such. But the truth is I have lived my whole life with a woman so it's hard to know, thus it's hard to say definitively whether I am bi or gay, honestly.

Your description here does kind of nail me:
But, when he had his first male experience is was like he was on fire -- totally turned ON and rushing, emotions, feelings, images and sparks like he had NEVER felt before. And it wasn't even sex, it was a highly charged emotional circumstance when the other guy grabbed him into a fierce embrace and buried his face into Rick's neck and it was like nothing he had NEVER felt before. He'd made out with lots of girls but this was radically different.


But then I don't know if that would hold up in a LTR with a guy.

[BrentRichards]

The readings of the plethsmography sphygmomanometer devices are highly sensitive and accurate. There is no way to hide from or fool them. It's called the sexual lie detector and these studies were more to determine falsification of actual arrousal patterns than strict classification of sexual identity.

Whoa! This is a pretty black and white statement on a methodology that is still MAJORLY disputed among both scientific and legal authorities. It is absolutely not fair to say that penile plethysmography is "highly sensitive and accurate" or impossible to fool ... that is very much up for debate. Check out some studies and arguments outside of the particular book you're citing ... opinion is FAR from universal on the value and/or reliability of this kind of research.

I myself am gay, period. Not even a little bi, never thought I was, so far as I can remember. I do know that many exclusively gay men go through a period of identifying as bi "on the way out" ... it's an easier cognitive transition, I'd imagine. But the existence of such men who are "not really" bi does not at all imply that all bi men are "not real" ... how do I explain my friend who is very out, activist, involved in the gay community, and recently fell in love with a woman, married her, and is raising their first child with her? Is he a fraud? Or is he, as he's always said, genuinely bi, and the person he fell in love with happened to be a woman, not a man. I am very wary of ... no, make that strenuously opposed to ... telling people I know their experience better than they do. I've had it done to me most of my life. I won't do it to others. A man who tells me he's bi is bi. He doesn't have to prove it to me, or to any researcher, or ... Why do we (of all people) have to have everyone fit into the categories WE want them in?

Rant over.

[dsdrane]

Tell it like it is!

You go, Grrl!

[Dash]

Originally Posted by archyboi

The stimuli was video/audio of soft-core porn with nudity, heavy kissing and making out -- no sex. The videos were set up this way. Two males, blank, non-sexual neutral imagery, blank, two females, blank, non-sexual neutral imagery, blank, two different males, blank, non-sexual neutral imagery, blank, two different females and so on.

Well, the methodology does sound rather thorough. I guess what I’m thinking of is an actual physical touch…a kiss, for example. Even for me as a decidedly gay male, the thunderous arousing effect that something so simple has on me is completely different than the effect erotic imagery induces. By your description, it seems that this study does not measure the effect of an opposite-gender kiss or physical touch upon the body of a bisexually self-identifying male.

Therefore, we can say that the test accurately reports what it measures (the effect of visual stimulus), but says nothing about what it does not measure (the effect of physical stimulus). Depending on how much a person responds to these different stimuli, the test may or may not provide an accurate measurement of their capacity for sexual arousal.

One of my early revelations was a statement in some old book on Ancient Greek sexuality (sorry...can't remember) to the effect that Athenian males could not accurately be called homosexual, but rather bisexual. The men were required to have wives and sire children in order to participate fully in the Democracy. So, functionally-speaking, they were not merely homosexual though they generally prized male-male love above male-female. It was the beginning, I think, of a different perspective on my part...an acceptance that people can live healthily and honestly, via sexual/social paradigms which seem foreign to me, but are perfectly natural to them.

BTW: love the sliver surfer avatar but too bad the movie sucked so bad, eh?

You know, I never got to actually see the movie.

[archyboi]

OK, Brent, explain to me in just as rigorous a manner exactly how it is not accurate and reliable. Cite the studies that make your case.

It is my understanding that the criticisms you raise are agenda-driven to deny the results. There's a little problem though. Evergreen and MANY others including the behavioral studies dept of BYU have been using this technology for fifty years to torture young gay men using operant behavioral modification electro-shock "conversive therapies" to "change" them into heterosexuals. It's a horrendous failure and evil.

Either the stimulus response is there or it is not and the devices are highly sensitive. That is irrefutable. The correlation to stimuli is the real culprit for error and misreadings. That's why the investigators took much greater care in the presentation and methodology of adminstration than in previous studies.

I think the very idea of a sexual lie detector that is highly accurate frightens a great many people -- especially gay men who are closeted, fabricate false heterosexual identities and have a HUGE vested interest in that never being exposed for what it is.

Anyway, peace to you and I thank you for your criticism.

--kev

[archyboi]

Hey boy!

I didn't either. The first one SUCKED so bad that when the BAD reviews came in for this one I passed. All I can say is that Chris Evans is a hottie and even HE couldn't get me into the theater -- I just downloaded the movie wallpapers! HA!

I think -- AND I AGREE WITH YOU, PAUL -- Reichen nailed me too. I have never read someone tell it so well and accurately. That took guts and a profound willinglness to open himself vulnerably to say the things he does in his book.

That, or he's a major EXHIBITIONIST!

I kinda think both. It takes a kind of bravado backed up with cold-steel determination to be an Air Force pilot that you and I have no idea about.

I admire him immensely.

OH MY G-D!!!

Go over to the Faith and Nonviolence threads -- "Jesus Gay" -- and read the paper I posted by Dr. Jeanne Reames on Alexander the Great's Sexuality. She cites the book you read!

Too cool.

--kev

[archyboi]

Me too. You just described me to a tee.

Thanks, Brother.

--kev

[dsdrane]

Originally Posted by archyboi

It is my understanding that the criticisms you raise are agenda-driven to deny the results. There's a little problem though. Evergreen and MANY others including the behavioral studies dept of BYU have been using this technology for fifty years to torture young gay men using operant behavioral modification electro-shock "conversive therapies" to "change" them into heterosexuals. It's a horrendous failure and evil.

I'm sorry; I must be slow.

How does the above prove or disprove the reliability of the method in question?

[BrentRichards]

Originally Posted by archyboi

OK, Brent, explain to me in just as rigorous a manner exactly how it is not accurate and reliable. Cite the studies that make your case.

Actually, since you're citing it as evidence, that ball falls in your court. The question here, to be technical is not reliability ... does the test show the same kind of patterns every time, sure ... that's reliability. But do those results TELL us anything useful? The proper term for that is validity, and that's what's seriously in question here ... even the test methods greatest advocates (see for example Barker and Howell, 1996) acknowledge a very limited predictive value, and huge margin for error in subjective conclusions being drawn from objective measures. Standardized stimuli, testing procedures, expected responses, interpretation methods, etc., simply haven't been established. The method is based on the idea that "it makes sense" that increased penile tumescence indicates increased sexual arousal. But "it just makes sense" (face validity) is not an acceptable scientific standard in psychological (or any other) research. What is to say that the differences in tumescence are not random, or caused by a condition of the testing (genital contact, for example), or even consciously controlled by the subject (a possibility advocates of the method dismiss as impossible due to the sensitivity of the equipment ... but you can't just "dismiss" a methodological problem, you must SHOW it isn't a problem) ... any kind of definitive research establishing a predictive, meaningful validity for the device is still missing ... so far as I've seen. I'll be happy to know of any specific names of rigorous studies you've read to the contrary. Without them, we can't assume it's valid because it seems like it would be. This is why Dr. W.M. Tyson and others have successfully argued for the exclusion of PPG evidence in court. Does it accurately measure changes in tumescence. Yup. Does that tell us anything definitive about the subject ... Um, maybe. Not good enough.

It is my understanding that the criticisms you raise are agenda-driven to deny the results. There's a little problem though. Evergreen and MANY others including the behavioral studies dept of BYU have been using this technology for fifty years to torture young gay men using operant behavioral modification electro-shock "conversive therapies" to "change" them into heterosexuals. It's a horrendous failure and evil.

What exactly is my agenda supposed to be here? And I also fail to see how the dispicable use of PPG methods in behavioral "aversion therapy" adds any weight to the validity of the method?

Either the stimulus response is there or it is not and the devices are highly sensitive. That is irrefutable. The correlation to stimuli is the real culprit for error and misreadings. That's why the investigators took much greater care in the presentation and methodology of adminstration than in previous studies.

Exactly the point. Is this book you refer to an account of the study? I'd be interested in seeing how they've addressed the methodological problems ... but I'll also want to see it in a peer-reviewed journal ... is it out there somewhere?

I think the very idea of a sexual lie detector that is highly accurate frightens a great many people -- especially gay men who are closeted, fabricate false heterosexual identities and have a HUGE vested interest in that never being exposed for what it is.

I'm sure you're correct about this. In my case, it's irrelevant, as it would seem to be for you, too. I'm sure you're aware that the most common use of PPG techniques today is in identification and treatment of sex offenders ... and it is fraught with controversy in that field as well. I'm far from an expert, though I've had enough graduate level social science to be an informed consumer of research, and will gladly check out what you suggest. I'm also savvy enough in the social sciences to bristle any time someone posits a study as anything approaching absolute proof of a simple answer to a complex question.

Ultimately here, Kevin, my concern is not to be "anti-PPG" ... if the tool proves to be useful for research (which point I am not convinced we are at yet) fine and good. My concern with your post was very much that you seemed to me to present this as a "clear as day" proof that self-identified bisexual men are lying. I don't think that's true, and I KNOW it's not helpful to the cause of equality and dignity for all of us... G's, L's, B's, T's ... and the rest of the alphabet, too.

[archyboi]

So sorry, my fault entirely.

M.D.s, Glenn Wilson & Qazi Rahman:
Born Gay: The Psychobiology of Sex Orientation
c2005

Get the book and read it. All the study citations are in the appendix and referenced scrupulously to the body text.

Go read it.

For the information I talked about here are the study citations:

Chivers, M.I., Rieger, G., Latty, E. & Bailey, J.M. (in press at time of publishing) ‘A sex difference in the specificity of sexual arousal’, Psychological Science.
Freund, K. (1963) ‘A laboratory method for diagnosing predominance of homo- or hetero-erotic interest in the male’, Behavior Research and Therapy, 1, pp. 85-93.
Freund, K., Watson, R. & Rienzo, D. (1989) ‚Heterosexuality, homosexuality, and erotic age preference’, Journal of Sex Research, 26, pp. 107-17.
Sakheim, G., Barlow, D.H., Beck, J.G. & Abrahamson, D.J. (1985) ‘A comparison of male heterosexual and male homosexual patterns of sexual arousal’, Journal of Sex Research, 21, pp. 183-98.

For the 1999 study:

Bailey, J. Michael, Pillard, R.C., Dawood, K., Miller, M.B., Farrer, L.A., Trivedi, S. & Murphy, R.L. 1999 ‘A family history of male sexual orientation using three independent samples’, Behavior Genetics, 29, pp. 79-86.

Go find them and read them.

--kev

[archyboi]

You honestly don't know about this?

It is going on right now in secret institutes like Evergreen and others that have no official footprint -- the Mormon anti-gay "conversive therapy" arm of the church since BYU couldn't do it any more after 1979.

The plethsmography sphygmomanometer is the primary signal initiating device to administer the shocks.

Seems to have been plenty accurate for 50 years or so.

That was my point.

Would you like to know where the electrodes are placed? It's graphic and medeival. The shocks aren't dangerous but the permanent mental trauma is.

Sorry, but this makes me furious that human beings could do something so monstrous to other human beings. These studies began as an investigation into abnormal violent sex offenders' psychological pathologies. That's where the anti-gay churches such as LDS got the idea to do this awful thing. I should not have assumed you knew. My fault entirely.

http://www.affirmation.org/learning/therapy.shtml

Read Jayce Cox's experience in a 2000 interview with a psychotherapist: http://www.isu.edu/~schorona/jayce2.htm

--kev

[dsdrane]

The original subject of this thread has been lost.

As there is obviously enough information -- and passion -- here to justify at least one or two additional threads, I suggest new threads be created.

[dsdrane]

Originally Posted by archyboi

You honestly don't know about this?

It is going on right now in secret institutes like Evergreen and others that have no official footprint -- the Mormon anti-gay "conversive therapy" arm of the church since BYU couldn't do it any more after 1979.

The plethsmography sphygmomanometer is the primary signal initiating device to administer the shocks.

Seems to have been plenty accurate for 50 years or so.

That was my point.

Would you like to know where the electrodes are placed? It's graphic and medeival. The shocks aren't dangerous but the permanent mental trauma is.

Sorry, but this makes me furious that human beings could do something so monstrous to other human beings. These studies began as an investigation into abnormal violent sex offenders' psychological pathologies. That's where the anti-gay churches such as LDS got the idea to do this awful thing. I should not have assumed you knew. My fault entirely.

http://www.affirmation.org/learning/therapy.shtml

This must be stopped. Somehow.

--kev

Kev --

It occurs to me that your rhetorical ship is running aground on two different levels: on the one hand, your arguments trend esoteric, where you assume common knowledge or understanding where there is none (or little); on the other hand, your discourse can be read as condescending, blithely stating information that we collectively know all too well.

Whereas I admire your zeal and obvious enthusiasm, you must remember the audience you're addressing; we've all been around the block more times than we'd care to mention. If you'd like to participate fully on this site, you might want to approach people here with the kind of respect you'd expect to receive yourself.

[archyboi]

My point, exactly. Can we move this discussion to another thread if you continue to be interested, Brent?

I was interested in bisexual expereince both male and female. I didn't intend this spinning so out of control. I am fascinated by the posts on the topic and learning so much.

Brent, you may not agree with what I have said but you haven't done the prerequisite reading to argue further. Do the reading then we'll talk on another thread, if you like.

Please.

--kev

[u-dog]

Originally Posted by archyboi

Brent, you may not agree with what I have said but you haven't done the prerequisite reading to argue further. Do the reading then we'll talk on another thread, if you like.

Please.

--kev

This is quite possibly the rudest, most arrogant, and least respectful thing I've ever read. Kev... are you autistic or aspergers or something cuz your social skills are like... I don't know ... zero?

[Zerbie]

Originally Posted by archyboi

I get you. But the problem is this. The reason I cited Born Gay is that the studies do not bear your thesis out. Turns out that a 1999 study showed this. 38 self-identified straight males, 35 self-identified gay males and 33 self-identified bi males were asked to participate which they did.

All of the males were pre-interviewed with standardized questions assessing their level of comfort with the subject of homosexuality.

The gay males expressed no anti-gay sentiments. So did the bi males. But of the straight males who expressed no anti-gay bias and the others who did a VERY interesting result was observed.

All of the males who expressed no anti-gay sentiments physiogenically responded only to the female/female soft erotic stimuli and not at all to the male/male stimuli. As expected.

Guess what the other "straight" males responded to??!! Hmmm?

Exclusively to the male/male stimuli and not at to the female/female stimuli.

That's fascinating. Most males who expresses anti-gay sentiments are actually gay denying their true sexual identity, fabricating a false straight sexual identity and lying to cover this over with anti-gay rhetoric. So watch what people say. Ted Haggard is a classic closetcase. Have you seen Jesus Camp? I have. See it. His vitriolic & virulent anti-gay rant goes to such extremes that he is actually frothing at the mouth and sprays his audience. That's interesting. I have read his resignation letter -- it is pitiful & pathetic.

The gay males responded as expected of course.

But here's the REALLY interesting result. Of the self-identified bi males only a couple responded equally to both female/female & male/male stimuli. All of the remainder responded exclusively to the male/male stimuli and NOT at all to the female/female stimuli.

Why?

Because many males who are actually gay are so terrified of self-identifying as "gay" or exclusively "homosexual" that the furthest they can comfortably go is to self-identify as bi.

That's interesting.

So, I am sorry to use hot-botton language but my thesis remains true. That's all I was saying.

Thanks, baby!

--kev

Hi Kev,

The interesting thing is you say your readings "don't bear my thesis out," but, erm, yes they do. I said essentially the same thing you said, with the caveat that we're getting into dangerous territory (assumption) with the assertion that male bisexuals are "a myth." I bet there are some, there are all kinds in this world.

I believe I have heard about the study cited in the book. This is the one with the (what IS the word? plethysmograph?) equipment measuring men's physiological response to erotic stimuli. The findings you cite sound really familiar.

I'd be leary of making universal assumptions based on one study. I'm sure they have real sociological relevance, and I'm not surprised by them. But there is always someone around who breaks the rule. You might even say a phrase my husband often uses, that they are "the exception that proves the rule." It doesn't mean some folks who fit the "exception" category are not out there. I'm sure they are.

I think it is likely quite correct that 50-50% male bisexuals are rare. I don't think I've ever met one, to my knowledge. Then again, who says that bisexuality is ever always 50-50? My own responses have changed with time, at some times responding more to women, at other times more to men. Fluid. I have felt genuinely that I'm straight at a time or two, and genuinely felt that I was lesbian at still others. Again, I do observe that fluidity to be far more common of females than males. But that's just personal experience, which is by necessity limited.

Anyway Kev, the point is, I don't believe that we're arguing.

[BrentRichards]

Originally Posted by archyboi

My point, exactly. Can we move this discussion to another thread if you continue to be interested, Brent?

I was interested in bisexual expereince both male and female. I didn't intend this spinning so out of control. I am fascinated by the posts on the topic and learning so much.

Brent, you may not agree with what I have said but you haven't done the prerequisite reading to argue further. Do the reading then we'll talk on another thread, if you like.

Please.

--kev

As a matter of fact, I don't like, thanks. I'll certainly look at the research with interest, for my own sake. I don't think I'll be discussing it any further with you. Your manner and replies to me thus far have come across as very condescending, and I'll admit I haven't got the patience to deal with that, thanks. Have an enjoyable stay on the forums.

[Zerbie]

Originally Posted by paul

I identified as Bi for about 10 years, I guess. I was on my own with this, so no witnesses to confirm. And actually, my feeling was/is opposite than the "studies." I would much rather say I'm "gay" or "straight" than "bi." Bi means everyone has a reason to reject you !

I thought and feared this same way for a few years. I then decided to turn it on its head and say: Everyone has a reason to accept me. I have a sexuality in common with the straight folk AND the gay folk. I know what both "orientations" feel like because I live both of them simultaneously. So luv me darnit.


It's easy to see how bi people get the reputation they get, they have no "community," or flag, .

Actually, Paul, we DO have a flag. Don't feel out of the loop for not knowing. I've been involved in gay activism since like, '95. I just found out we bisexuals have our own flag about a year ago. If I remember correctly, it's lavender, with blue on one side and pink on the other, then mixed into lavender in the middle.