Oh, LR, Why'd you have to drag me into this??? I was having fun just watching the bi-girls go at it!
Almost all females were physically turned on by any of the acts...regardless of their own orientation, and regardless of the subjects in the pictures. It didn't matter if the pic was MM, MF, FF, MFM...etc...didn't matter that the viewer was Hetero, Homo, Bi...they responded to them all.
The greater majority of males...were physically responsive only when at least one subject in the pic matched with their orientation. Hetero did not respond to MM, Homo did not respond to FF.
So far...the various reactions in this thread, seem to be consistent with the findings.
One of the big bones of contention with the sexuality debate seems to revolve around nature vs. nurture. Elements of personality or identity which are pre-programmed without the conscious choice of the individual, and those which are a product of conditioning from the environment around us...societal norms, family, religious dogma, etc.
...and of course social conditioning. There were 1300 kids in my high school and only two that identified as gay males the entire time. I had very little exposure during some very influential times of my life.
I grew up in similar circumstances. My high school numbered 2600, in a conservative city of a conservative province. I don't recall ever hearing about a single publically self-identified homosexual in the school. The only time it came up was watching Degrassi. This was also before the Canadian charter added sexual orientation to the list of things that the government wasn't allowed to discriminate against.
If one can be "wired" mono, I suspect one can be "wired" hetero.
Of course I guess that's another discussion. And all of that is completely separate from finding bi- "disgusting" - which I don't.
It may be a different discussion, but this is one of the linchpins that the GLBT lobby used for years to gain their piece of equality. The argument that being Gay, was not a choice. It was no different than being born male, female, black or white. Thus if discrimination was not permitted based on things which the individual had no control over, such as their physical gender, or ethnicity, then there should likewise be no discrimination based on orientation.
From studies, I lean more to the idea that men and women fall somewhere on the bisexual scale. I think a big difference is that society is more encouraging of women being with women than with men being with men. So they don't feel as much pressure to act more heterosexual than men do. Plus it seems to be a fad for two women to make out to turn guys on. (While I would like to believe they want each other, I think many cases are just to tease guys.)
Maybe when society becomes less male homophobic, we will see more bisexual men pubically. I have a gut feeling that basic bisexuality is probably equal in both genders.
The societal norms...vary from country to country...but certainly while men might greet each other with kisses on the cheek in some countries, this sort of PDA would be far less acceptable in most areas of the US, Canada,...and I would expect the UK. It would be far more acceptable for women to do so. Similarly, women could go to a club and dance with a guy, group, or with each other. Guys generally danced with a woman or mixed group, maybe on their own...or more likely not at all.
The relaxation of these norms I think has manifested in the newish so called 'fad' of girls kissing each other at the bars to tease the guys. (This was not something I remember seeing when I first started going to bars) It makes sense...since the straight guys will still react to watching two girls kiss, and they don't have to give anything away by kissing a guy they may not know, or cause a jealousy reaction in a guy they might know. And they also may get something out of it if they're turned on by the act regardless of their own orientation.
Thus, FF PDA's had a head start anyways...and are inclined to favourable albeit subconscious reaction by both sexes in the majority of cases...with the possible exception of gay males. MM interactions however...are having a harder time...the interaction would not garner a favourable reaction in the majority of straight males...and there is still a broad power base governing what defines the mores and norms of society which is heavily influenced by a bunch of old straight guys...such is the way of patriarchy.
I'd agree with Quath that as the fears around Homosexuality subside, the public self-identification of Bi-males will increase. Although I personally doubt it will approach the same levels of female bi-sexuality. Given the apparently biological pre-disposition of females to be turned on by any sexual combination regardless of their own preference, I'd suspect there'd be a greater flexibility in their ability to move away from the extremes of the spectrum. (This is just my current suspicion...only time will tell)
I'll second Rarechild here and put in my two cents, that its been my experience and overall thoughts that we are all actually bisexual...
That, however, denies the experiences of those women who have never been sexually attracted to other women and men who have never been sexually attracted to other men. Most people may, indeed, be described as somewhere along the spectrum of hetero to homo. There are still people at each end of the spectrum and to describe them as belonging somewhere in the middle pretty much eliminates any notion of normal human variation and runs roughshod over their experiences.
I have to agree with SC about some of this. The idea that everyone is Bi, to the exclusion of Hetero, or Homo comes close to invalidating the argument that sexuality is a factor of nature. If everyone was Bi, and could be sexually attracted to, or get involved with either sex, then the decision of which sex to be involved with becomes just another personal choice. It would simply be a matter of conditioning, and/or normalization to make sure that they chose the way society wanted to dictate. Homosexuality would become a 'fixable' problem. And the GLBT movement would be out 30 years of blood, sweat and tears for nothing.
I would not at all be surprised if this was part of the reason that bi's seem to get a lot of pushback from the G&L community...seemingly even more-so than the straight side.
See I really believe in the spectrum, but in order for there to BE a spectrum, there must also be SOMEONE on either end.. I think.... if there wasn't-there wouldn't be an "either end".... (scratching head and wondering where II is with his logic).
As for the question of the spectrum...between Kinsey and anecdotes, and knowing a few myself...I'd agree there is a spectrum, a continuum between purely straight, and purely gay, and a fair amount of middle in-between.
The thing about the spectrum is that there can be end-points on the extremes. And a middle...and not all patterns of human behaviour follow a bell curve that concentrates everything in the middle.
The other thing about continuums is that while they may be analog, there is so little difference between data points that lie beside each other as to be insignificant. Thus any such curve needs usually needs to be broken down (such as Kinsey did) into discrete elements to simplify presentation and discussion of the data. So regardless of if it's a spectrum, it can be reasonably viewed that the majority of people who lie near those extremes could be discussed as 100% straight or gay....regardless if the (hypothetically empirical)number is 100%, or 99.99998273% or 98.223459%.
In this case there's probably some very heavy weighting on the end points...especially on the straight end. I'd expect it to look something akin to a half-bell curve centred on the Hetero-extreme, and sloping down to the Homo-extreme. Or maybe a learning curve. I wouldn't be surprised if the Homo-extreme ended up making it look a bit like a ski-jump ramp. I also wouldn't be surprised if there was a slightly shallower curve amongst females in comparison to the male curve, where there would be more. There's probably also different curves based on public, private, and true. I`d need to see more data.
Ok LR....now that you dragged me into this...you can let me know if any of this helped.
That's it for me today I think...some more material to chew on...and probably enough discussion stubs for new threads to keep things going a while. This topic is nothing if not complex.
Cheers.
