Sunday 26 April 2015

Male Bisexuality, Body-Reading, and The Danger of The Guy In The White Lab Coat

I originally found this study disputing the existence of male bisexuality a few years ago. Basically, the 2005 study involved a cohort of bisexual-identifying men viewing both male-centric and female-centric porn, with monitors attached to their genitals to measure arousal. Based on the results, the psychology professor Gerulf Reiger leading the study concluded "In men, there is no good evidence that something like a true bisexual attraction is out there."
The nature of this study (validating or denying desire via the measure of genital arousal) involves the much criticised approach of "reading the body", which white supremacist scientists once used to rule other races as inferior to Caucasians via skull size! 

I believe that a widespread erasure of bisexuality (at least that of males) within Western society can be attributed to a taxonomic urge... Our society tends to only accept things as existing if they fit into a dualism, i.e. gay or straight. People pay a lot of attention to scientific studies, and whilst I myself am fascinated by scientific findings, I do believe it is important to keep in mind certain elements to scientific study such as limitations, process, sample size (this particular study eventually drew from 22 bisexual identifying men, 21 heterosexual identifying men and 25 homosexual identifying men), who is conducting the research AND who is funding the research... It's like Judith Butler's inclusion of the Speech-Act Theory; as long as faith is had in the guy in the white lab coat, it may as well be true. 
I digress... This study is very interesting because of its attempt to catch out, disprove and debunk the bisexual male with its findings. It is a body-reading study that attempts to taxonomise desire and human capability for desire.

                       "The majority of bisexual men got aroused to men and only to men. This study fits the picture that ... men are very target-specific. They have an object of their sexual desire and go for that ... The pattern is that they have this object specificity — it does not change." 
- Gerulf Reiger.
In my opinion, this study is a load of bullshit and no amount of guys in white lab coats or scientific studies are going to tell anybody who they can and cannot "truly" fall in love with or engage with sexually, regardless of what their bodily organs do. No amount of taxonomizing is capable of dissuading them of their bisexuality.
Edit: It's also interesting to note that the findings of around a third of each orientation cohort were not even included in the final results... As the article notes: "9 of the heterosexual men (out of 30), 11 of the bisexual men (out of 33), and 13 of the homosexual men (out of 38) did not become genitally aroused by the videos and were dropped from the final analysis."



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