A study suggests evidence of sexual arousal patterns in men that are consistent with bisexuality. The existence of male bisexuality is contested, with skeptics claiming that men who self-identify as bisexual are actually either homosexual or heterosexual. Jeremy Jabbour, J. Michael Bailey, Gerulf Rieger, and colleagues combined data from eight previous multinational studies comprising Kinsey scores--a measure of self-reported sexual orientation used by many researchers--and measures of genital and self-reported arousal to erotic stimuli from more than 500 men, around 29 years of age. Participants' genital and self-reported arousal in response to their less-arousing sex exhibited a U-shaped function with Kinsey score. Men in the middle, bisexual Kinsey score range (2-4) showed smaller differences in genital arousal to male versus female erotic stimuli, compared with exclusively heterosexual and homosexual men having Kinsey scores of 0 and 6, respectively. This pattern was driven by the fact that bisexual men were more aroused by their less arousing sex compared with heterosexual and homosexual men. According to the authors, the findings suggest that bisexual-identifying men exhibit genital and subjective arousal patterns consistent with their self-reported orientation and that there is a continuum of male sexual orientations.
Article #20-03631: "Robust evidence for bisexual orientation among men," by Jeremy Jabbour et al.
MEDIA CONTACT: J. Michael Bailey, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL; tel: 773-469-7429; e-mail: <jm-bailey@northwestern.edu>; Gerulf Rieger, University of Essex, Colchester, UNITED KINGDOM; tel: +44-7938-620-870; e-mail: <gerulf@essex.ac.uk>; Jeremy Jabbour, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL; tel: 631-834-6726; e-mail: <jeremy.jabbour@u.northwestern.edu>; John Sylla, University of Chicago Law School, IL; tel: 323-550-1500; e-mail: jsylla@foton.com
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Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences