Column: Trying to get ‘bi’ in a gendered world

In an upcoming study in the journal Biological Psychology, researchers at Northwestern University found that bisexual men are, indeed, bisexual. Okay, while this might not make the earth move under your feet (or maybe it did last week), bisexuality has remained a controversial topic for both science and society.

Certain ideas persist: Everybody is really just gay or straight; bisexuals have to make a choice eventually; it’s either a stepping-stone toward being gay or just that one time in college.

Some of these ideas are even supported by studies stating that 40 percent of gay men start off bisexual, or that most bisexual men shift toward homosexuality.

In fact, the same lab at Northwestern published in 2005 that “it remains to be shown that male bisexuality exists.” While they acknowledged bisexuality as a behavior and identity, they wanted to find a distinct bisexual pattern of arousal.

They showed sex films featuring two men or two women to male subjects identifying as gay, straight or bisexual. Then, using a penile gauge, they measured each subject’s genital arousal, or erection.

The bisexual subjects demonstrated much more genital arousal to one film or the other, similar to the gay and straight subjects.

So why the revisit? The group conceded that the study might have been influenced by the subject recruitment method. They advertised in the gay community and found subjects through self-identification alone. In the new study funded by the American Institute of Bisexuality, researchers found subjects in an online bisexual community who have a history of sexual and romantic relations with both sexes.

And voila! Bisexual subjects, bisexual genital arousal.

The immediate response has been mixed. Some might find it affirming; others, insulting.

Terri Phoenix, director of the UNC LGBTQ Center, said, “It only looks at one component of what it means to be bisexual.”

Phoenix said the study was limited by its gender binary approach, adding that a more qualitative study on the subjective experiences of bisexual, pansexual and queer persons would have been preferable.

Danny DePuy, the center’s assistant director, expressed some optimism.

“My hope would be that this opens up more room for good information,” DePuy said. “Bi or pansexual people often feel misunderstood.”

It seems silly that we need science to say it, but it does feel like a step toward acceptance of more sexualities than just gay or straight, a more fluid concept of what sexual orientation is and can be. The researchers even found a spectrum of arousal in their bisexual subjects and proposed this could fluctuate temporally.

The science may not explain the whole story, but we can still learn from it. The 2005 study, though flawed, reveals that bisexual identity and arousal do not always line up, at least in the lab.

Sex researchers will continue to ask questions and attempt to answer them; what’s important is what we do with those answers. People of all sexual orientations should be respected, regardless of identity, behavior or attraction.

So go forth and be bi. I hope you won’t need a penile gauge.