Jul 15, 2005  |  By: ELIZABETH WEILL-GREENBERG  | COMMENTS     

The New York Times angered gay rights activists last week following its report on a new study questioning the validity of bisexuality in males.

Critics claim that the July 5 story, “Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited,” failed to question the methodology of the research and did not include past accusations of misconduct on the part of one of the study’s authors.

According to the Times article, a study on bisexuality, to be published in Psychological Science, casts serious doubt on the validity of bisexuality in men because it found that bisexual men were aroused by images of men while showing little or no arousal when exposed to images of women.

Several gay advocacy groups, including the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, publicly denounced the Times story.

The study concluded that: “[W]ith respect to sexual arousal and attraction, it remains to be shown that male bisexuality exists. Thus, future research should … explore nonsexual reasons why some men might prefer a bisexual identity.”

The researchers, Gerulf Rieger, Meredith L. Chivers and controversial Northwestern University professor J. Michael Bailey, attached a device to the penises of study participants to measure arousal while they watched two-minute pornographic movies and 11-minute non-sexual films. The men were asked to discuss their arousal during the films. The study examined small samples of homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual men — about 20 to 30 in each group.

“My conclusion is that for the most part, men’s self-identity doesn’t match their physical genital pattern,” Rieger told the Blade.

“In my own opinion, I truly doubt that bisexuality exists in men,” said Rieger, a gay graduate student at Northwestern’s psychology department and the study’s lead author.

Rieger said that he and Bailey are not accusing all bisexuals of lying but that it is possible that some of the men sampled were not truthful about their sexual orientation.

But can the authors’ methodology accurately measure sexual arousal and does that arousal determine sexual orientation? According to researchers contacted by the Blade who reviewed the study and are experts in the sexuality field, the answer is no. The study only raises more questions and definitively answers none, they agreed.

Many also questioned the researchers’ interpretations of their data. The study showed that heterosexual men responded more to watching pornography with two men than to the non-sexual movies.

“What I see here is greater evidence of bisexuality,” said Paula Rodriguez Rust, a sociologist and member of the International Academy of Sex Research.

Some researchers criticized the methodology used in Bailey’s study. Bailey used a penile plethysmograph to measure arousal. Courts generally reject the plethysmograph, which was created in the 1950s, when prosecutors and defense attorneys try to submit its findings in sex abuse cases.

“It’s not scientifically accepted by the courts,” said Jack King, director of public affairs for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

The device is mistakenly seen as a lie detector for the penis, said Randall Sell, an assistant professor of clinical socio-medical sciences at Columbia University. But it is vulnerable to manipulations because men learn at an early age that having an erection in public is an embarrassing experience and are trained to avoid that, he said.

Sell also pointed out that in 25 percent of the people studied the device could not detect any arousal. These people were dismissed from the study.

“I don’t know anyone that will rely on a device that is so insensitive it can’t measure anything in 25 percent of the people,” he said.

Signs of arousal don’t always translate into desire. At times people can become physically aroused against their will, Rodriguez Rust said. There have been cases in which a man who is raped gets an erection or women will appear aroused while watching a video of sexual violence, she said.

Several researchers also noted that arousal and orientation are influenced by audio stimulus, behavior, attraction, pheromones, fantasies and emotional connections. Bisexuality is just as complicated — bisexuals are not 50 percent heterosexual and 50 percent gay, they said.

In Rodriguez Rust’s research of bisexual men she found that they were attracted to men and women differently. With men, it was more of a sexual pull and with women they were drawn to romance, she said.

“When they show people films, what they’re getting is a visual image,” she said. “It’s not surprising that they’re getting a physical response. The images of women are not what most bisexual men say they’re attracted to.”

The videos themselves are subject to scrutiny as well. ...