Good news, bisexual men: Scientists have decided that you exist! You may now stop fighting your attraction to both women and men, because some dude in a lab coat says you're allowed to want whoever you want.
The New York Times reports that researchers at Northwestern University have confirmed that bisexual men are aroused by both men and women. Of course, men attracted to both sexes have been saying this for years, but six years ago Northwestern researchers decided these men might just be confused about their sexuality. The first study was wrong, but you can't really blame the researchers for not trusting bisexual men to accurately report who they're attracted to. Some people have become so mixed up about their own sexual orientation that they require intensive "reparative" therapy to make them realize that they're not gay. And even then, many of them just won't listen to reason!
As it turns out, the 2005 study may have been skewed because the researchers recruited men via ads in gay-oriented publications. Qualifying for the more recent study was much harder. The Times reports:
To improve their chances of finding men aroused by women as well as men, the researchers recruited subjects from online venues specifically catering to bisexuals.
They also required participants to have had sexual experiences with at least two people of each sex and a romantic relationship of at least three months with at least one person of each sex.
The lucky winners got to have sensors hooked up to their genitals while watching gay and lesbian porn. Researchers found that bisexual men responded to both videos while gay and straight men did not.
Lead author Allen Rosenthal says this study, "Will be validating to a lot of bisexual men who had heard about the earlier work and felt that scientists weren't getting them." Surely bisexual men put a lot of stock in the findings of researchers who previously told them their penis was on the fritz. Unfortunately, the scientists haven't turned their attention to women yet, but we'll keep you female bisexuals posted — that is, if we find out that you're real.
No Surprise for Bisexual Men: Report Indicates They Exist [NYT]
Image via Eliro/Shutterstock.
DISCUSSION
In other news, water is wet, and fire is rather warm.
It’s interesting how differently biphobia plays out for men and for women. As a bisexual woman people definitely believe that I exist and don’t need studies to convince them of my existence, it’s just that they hold all sorts of shitty stereotypes about me (slutty, unreliable, will inevitably dump any woman I date for a man, will make out with other women for the entertainment of men in bars). Plus I feel like the worst pushback I get is usually from the queer community, particularly from lesbians (who often think I will at some point become straight and therefore don't want to date me), whereas for men who are bi it seems like gay men think they’re gay and just too scared to come out and straight people of both sexes also think that they’re actually gay. So basically the public at large believes that the lure of the cock is so powerful that anyone who has any interest in it will inevitably go that way in the end, regardless of what those people may say to the contrary.
But yeah…um, study authors, I’ve actually watched my bisexual ex boyfriend have sex with a man (don't worry, I wasn't just being creepy and watching, I was involved too), so I hate to break it to you, but you’re a bit late to the party with this discovery.