The Study
Bisexual men really DO exist. And while most of us already knew that, this new study's trying to convince the few who don't believe it.
This study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, comes to us from a group of psychology researchers and professors at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. The group of psychologists, led by J. Michael Bailey, looked at eight sexual orientation studies released between 2000 and 2019.
The studies were also completed at Northwestern University; the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto; the University of Essex in Colchester, U.K.; and Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. In the end, only around 600 men were involved with the collection of studies. The average age was 29 while the racial diversity was split by 66% White men, 12% Black men, nearly 9 percent Asian men, nearly 6% Latinos, and nearly 9% reported as other.
As for the results, 178 of the men described themselves as “exclusively heterosexual,” 102 said they were “mostly” straight, 139 said they were “exclusively homosexual,” and 70 said they were “mostly” gay. Then, 117 men said they were bisexual. Within that, 46 bisexual men said they leaned straight while 37 said they leaned gay and 34 described themselves as simply bisexual. Most of the bisexual men also described themselves to be a 2, 3, or 4 on the Alfred Kinsey scale. (The seven-point Kinsey scale is an orientation measure where 0 equates to being exclusively straight and 6 means exclusively gay).
But that’s not all. The men did not only participate in a survey, but they also participated in a pretty physical and intimate study based on genital arousal. The circumferences of the men were measured. Then, researchers showed the men erotic videos and images involving either men or women separately. The researchers then measured the study participants’ genitals after viewing the erotic content. This was to better gauge arousal patterns among the men.
The results for that study found that 100 participants weren’t aroused by any of the adult content. Meanwhile, the remaining 500 or so men were not only aroused, but in fact matched with their 2, 3, and 4 Kinsey scale numbers.
But Why The Study?
Some may mock and laugh at the very existence of this study. After all, the headline, “Bi men are real” is laughable. Many of us already know that bisexual men exist. That said, many also mock the legitimacy of bisexuality. Often when men come out as bisexual, they are assumed to be secretly gay and not accepting of themselves. For Bailey and his associates, this study was an attempt to quiet this constant erasure of male, and general, bisexuality.
“There has long been a controversy whether men who identify as bisexual are actually bisexual. The bisexual men and many others believe that they are,” Bailey explained in the study’s reflection.
“However, some others — including some scientists and lay persons — have doubted this,” he noted. The psychologist also stated that there’s the common belief that men who claim to be bisexual “are actually either heterosexual or homosexual, and that their claim to be bisexual is based on self-misunderstanding, perhaps due to social pressure not to admit exclusive homosexuality.”
But after the study’s results, J. Michael Bailey believes there’s more scientific evidence to prove that bisexual men are not misunderstanding themselves or waiting to come out as the “other side of the field.”
“The current study found very strong and consistent evidence that bisexual men do in fact tend to have bisexual arousal patterns,” Bailey explained further. “There is no longer reasonable doubt.”
