This sunday, the 23rd of September is international Bi-Visibility day. Bisexuality is the proclivity to be sexually attracted to both men and women. It does not necessarily imply that one is equally attracted to both or that one is romantically attracted to both. It is a sexual orientation that often gets criticized from both ends of the sexual spectrum. Both straight and homosexual people alike have made biphobic accusations about wether or not bisexuality is even a real sexual orientation. But once again the science has proven that some people really do just like a bit of both as Frankie Wilde would say (sorry for the completly obscure reference but fuck it this is my blog and I can do what I want!). I am going to quote Science of Relationships Bisexuality Myths Debunked by Science at length because they explain it way better than I ever could, so here it is:
Myth 1: Bisexuality Doesn’t Exist
I find this myth to be particularly laughable: how can you tell a group of individuals that they don’t exist? But the idea that all people have to be either straight or gay is one that pervades, particularly when it comes to men. Frustratingly, even within the most LGBT-friendly circles, you can sometimes find the idea that “there’s no such thing as a bisexual man.”
Researchers have quite clearly laid this myth to rest with a study recently published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior.1 The researchers recruited straight, gay, and bisexual men, and exposed them to a variety of erotic film clips. Not only were participants asked to rate their subjective feelings of arousal in response to the clips, but they were also connected to physiological equipment that measured changes in the circumference of their penises (i.e., genital arousal). As would be expected, heterosexual men responded with much more subjective and genital arousal to films containing women rather than men, and vice versa for gay men. However, bisexual men were aroused relatively similarly by videos of both men and women. They were also more aroused by bisexual clips – clips featuring two men and one woman – than were the other two groups. Importantly, these differences were in their reported arousal and in their genital arousal, which is a pretty objective measurement. Thus, it is clear from this study that these individuals were not “pretending” to be bisexual.
Myth 2: Bisexuality is Just a Phase
With this myth, bisexuality is represented as a state of experimentation or confusion – typically experienced during the college years – that occurs before a person settles on their “true” identity (i.e., before they pick a side).
Lisa Diamond has conducted some very sophisticated work on this topic, in which she has examined the sexual identifies of women over long periods of time. In a paper published in Developmental Psychology,2 Dr. Diamond reports on a sample of women who she followed over a period of 10 years. The results of this study clearly showed that bisexuality is not a transitional period: very few women who identified as bisexual in adolescence changed their identity to either straight or lesbian by the end of the study (only 8% did so). Rather, bisexual women were consistently sexually fluid over time, maintaining their attractions to both genders to varying degrees over the course of the ten-year period.
This year is a big year for Bi Pride because Berkley, California is officially the first city in America to declare a day recognizing bisexuals. So if you know anyone who is bisexual give them a big hug and a hi five on sunday because it’s not all roses and threesomes and being out as bi can be just as hard for some as any other sexual identity. We at The “Oh!” Face love bisexuals!
