Where have all the bisexuals gone?

You know, it's come to my attention that there isn't nearly enough sex at The Reaction. And, after all, doesn't sex sell? Don't we need more of it here?

No, no, not to worry, I'm not about to move away from politics, but here, for your amusement and/or edification and/or personal reflection is an interesting article on bisexuality that I came across today while surfing through the Times. It seems that a study conducted by psychologists in Toronto and Chicago has found that true bisexuality might be nothing more than a myth, indeed, that those men who define themselves as bisexual are actually homosexual: "In the new study, a team of psychologists directly measured genital arousal patterns in response to images of men and women. The psychologists found that men who identified themselves as bisexual were in fact exclusively aroused by either one sex or the other, usually by other men."

Does the study mean anything? Maybe, maybe not. First, only men were tested, and "bisexuality appears easier to demonstrate in the female sex. A study published last November by the same team of Canadian and American researchers, for example, found that most women who said they were bisexual showed arousal to men and to women." Second, "other researchers -- and some self-identified bisexuals -- say that the technique used in the study to measure genital arousal is too crude to capture the richness -- erotic sensations, affection, admiration -- that constitutes sexual attraction."

So there you go. Make of it what you will.

I've long thought that we're all somehow bisexual to varying degrees. In this sense, sexual orientation is more of a continuum from heterosexuality to homosexuality than a set of distinct inclinations, with our place on that continuum determined (and moved around) by the complex and ever-shifting interaction of nature and nurture. I suppose, then, that I agree with those "other researchers". Genital arousal may mean something, but it surely can't explain it all.