REGULARS

Reader Feedback on "Raw Nerve: Categorically Stupid"

Terrific - I agree. I love the feel and smell of a women, but pefer m2m on the tube. I also enjoy m2m live (being one of them myself).
--ET
08/06

Ever since I heard it on the tv series Metrosexuality, I've been using the word "ambisextrous" to describe myself. I like it because it's kind of lighthearted and funny while making very clear that I am capable of and proud of loving people of either and any sexual variation, if I should meet the right ones. I am with a woman for the first time in years at the moment, after being with a series of trans and bio boys. Turns out that it IS just like riding a bike. Therefore, ambisextrous!
--Jay
12/10

It's spelled "Catullus," genius. Don't be so smarmy.
--
07/24

i'm not quite sure where this fits, but i call myself bisexuall. I stumbled on to guy sex while fervently looking for girl sex. At first I thought "hey what am I doing?" In time I came to the conclusion that i like both. Guy sex became a whole lot easier to get than girl sex. So I lean more toward guys. I still like women very much. my ultimate fantasy's remain having sex with both at the same time. Sometimes I just feel the gays just don't like it that we can go either way. well thats just my thoughts. Thanks for your time. Thank you also for showing how flawed a lot of these so called researches and reports are so biased. Is it any wonder why people like me trust no one.
--mm
07/20

Brilliant idea. But I'm just curious about the correct noun/adjective form of Alexander the Great. Does one stand proudly in the center of the room, hands on hips and pronounce: "I am Alexander the Great" (shades of schizophrenia) or should it be: "I am an Alexander the Great"? Or do we derive a whole new term. Perhaps "Alexian" or "Alexist"?
--REVS
07/20

spot on!
--JH
07/19

Thanks for your report on this stupid "study" - I identify as a bisexual woman, although my preference is women... and I'm all in favor of renaming bisexuality - I vote " kinsey " :)
--ECO
07/19

It was unfortunate that you started your critique with an ad hominem assault upon the study's author. This may sell well, but instantly creates the impression that you have no strong grounds upon which to oppose the actual results and methods of the study. I do agree with your argument that human sexuality is a complex phenomenon, and that response to porn may not be the best way to evaluate it. It is perhaps because of this that men were chosen as the subjects in the study - women are far more complex in their sexual response overall, while generally guys are turned on by simple visual cues. Pheromones in the classic sense do not play any significant role in human mating, though odors can certainly arouse or inhibit desire greatly (too long a topic to condense here, but I got my PhD in this field). My assessment of the study as a neuroscientist - interesting preliminary data, but very limited in the scope of what the results actually mean about human sexuality.
--GVG
07/18

Here's my take on this subject: First we need to define terms, which is probably part of the problem in general. I would say that "heterosexual" would be someone who is solely (or primarily) attracted to, physically and emotionally, members of the opposite sex for purposes of relationship-seeking. Same for "homosexual" with members of the same sex. "Bisexual," as I would define it, would be someone who is attracted to, physically and emotionally, members of either sex for purposes of relationship-seeking. I add the "relationship" caveat as a way to eliminate those "I tried it once in college" people who screw up the data. Are there people who have an equal number of relationships with men and women, of equal intensity and duration? Probably. Possibly. But as a matter of anecdotal evidence over 20 years of observation, I have never met anyone, male or female, who labeled themselves as "bisexual" who didn't end up actually having a strong preference for one over the other. The girls always went back to the boys, and the boys...always went back to the boys. Unless my reading of the New York Times article was particularly naive, that's all they were trying to say too.
--KRB
07/18

I'm a bisexual man who gets more easily aroused by women. So, this study would categorise me as straight. Wrong! The fundamental problem with the study is that it's looking for the mythical 50:50 bisexual, failing to find one and then claiming that as a proof that there aren't any bisexuals. Very few bisexuals are equally aroused by both men and women. Many of us have a gender preference (for instance, I have higher standards of physical attractiveness for men than I do for women), others have different desires for men and women (for instance, looking for relationships with one gender and pure sex with the other). Yet others describe their sexual preference as being for "people". The study can't be used to claim that bisexuality doesn't exist, just that the 50:50 bi is the myth that most bis already know it to be. The most inclusivist defintion of a bi is "anyone who has ever felt any sexual attraction to people of both genders". By that definition, the study proved that bisexuality exists - some people were aroused by both forms of porn. Of course, that definition is so broad that it includes nearly everyone. Which, from a bi-activist point of view, is rather the point; everyone is bi to some degree; the question is not "are you bi?" but "how bi are you?". Finally, of course, this totally fails to address transgender issues. What do you call someone who finds a TG person attractive? Especially if they find them attractive because they are TG, not in spite of being TG.
--RG
07/17

Thank you for criticizing this awful study. It has so many weaknesses, and a number of researchers, including sociologist Paula Rust Rodriguez and psychologist Ronald C. Fox have provided intelligent and thoughtful rebuttals. I'm the editor of a new book called Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals Around the World. If you want to understand bisexuality better, you'd be much better off reading this book than this damaging and awful study! Thanks to Nerve for providing space to cover this issue. --Robyn Ochs
--RO
07/16

since when is response to pornography an accurate indication of sexual orientation??? far out, if it is, i'm in trouble! when i'm bored and cruising around pichunter, this is the picture that invariably gets me off: a young, smooth, blonde, waxed girl being made a mess of by an overweight, unattractive man (or three). my body responds to the dominance/submission and inherent nastiness of the scene. when i walk around in the world, however, i am attracted to neither of those types of people. just for the record, i'm a bisexual woman currently in a longterm monogamous relationship with a man after having several relationships with women.
--jbc
07/16

There are several things that make the NYT article offensive, in particular the headline: "Straight, Gay, or Lying: Bisexuality Revisited". As if anyone who claims to be bi is actually lying at worst or confused at best. That is offensive and such pedantic commentary has no place in any legitimate report of a scientific study. As for the "science" it can be legitimately be questioned whether the experiment has anything to do with the conclusions drawn whatsoever.
--SD
07/16

Thanks for the article. Personally I simply enjoy sex, if I'm attracted to a person it doesn't matter what the gender is, I just enjoy the sensations, the initial touch, the caress, the taste, you know that initial rush that says that something physical is going to happen. Gender just doesn't matter.
--dfbv
07/16

Thank you from the not gay bisexual man who finds gay porn hot but still wants women even when the porn girls don't do so much anymore! I was glad to see you telling us a little about the authors feedback. I hope you sent your article as a letter to the NYT
--NR
07/15

Dr. Bailey, quoted in Benedict Carey�s article (NYT, July 5, 2005 ) states ''I'm not denying that bisexual behavior exists, but I am saying that in men there's no hint that true bisexual arousal exists, and that for men arousal is orientation.'' This is not a statement about the culture war debate about bisexuality, but an evaluation of the psychological/physiological research conducted in studies of sexual arousal. What this means, of course, is that it is time for a critique of the science of these studies. And there is plenty to critique. Kera Bolonik (�Categorically Stupid...�) highlights what we in the social science biz might call an ontological problem. This is one of the fundamental questions of science and cannot be minimized. The definition of bisexuality used by psychologists in sexual arousal studies is behavioral (e.g. how excited does a man get when he see�s dirty pictures?). This is not what we think of as gender identity. Thus, at the outset, all those who claim that these studies say something about gender identity are wrong. Period. But let�s go a little further and address these studies on their own merits. Do they tell us what we think they tell us about sexual arousal? Once again, Bolonik is exactly right. The subjects are usually men, for the simple reason that cheaper methods exist to measure male sexual arousal than women. (There are additional arousal studies that do evaluate sexual arousal in women and men. These studies are more interesting in that they suggest ways in which male and female sexual arousal are physiologically different in the brain.) The study serving as Carey�s focus, is exclusively male in orientation. So anyone who suggests that male studies say anything about bisexuals in general are, again, wrong. Period. Finally, an observation. All sexual arousal studies evaluate human responses to images of men and women, not to men and women. It is reasonable to suggest that people react differently towards pornography than they do real people. For instance, glossy pics of naked women might not be as appealing as, say, a naked woman giving you a kiss. That being the case, the male study that Carey is so hot for, really only says that a small group of self-identified bisexual men with sensors attached to their genitals like gay and hetero porn more than lesbian porn. Call me crazy, but when you look carefully at all this, it doesn�t amount to much � certainly not to a sea change in our understanding of bisexuality.
--TA
07/15

What the Northwestern study hints at, and what is even more controversial, is how different sexual desire and attraction blossoms in men and women. I think that men are more carnal and visually motivated and that the sexual desire in women includes more intellectual and emotional factors. Rarely does a guy want to bed a woman because she is "funny" or "because she treats me so well." Also, there is the phenomenon of "lesbians by choice." Very very few gay men choose to be gay because of bad relationships with women or because of a political stance like their female counterparts do. The latest scientific data suggests male homosexuality is genetic and this interesting bisexuality study seems to add more weight to this theory.
--FR
07/14

I agree, but wouldn't go so far as to say it is categorically stupid, just extremely skewed. Whereas the NYT article was attempting to report on the results of a scientific study, not "reduc[ing sexuality] to experiments where people's genitals are wired up to electrodes," the "opinion piece" here was based on one individual's experience and belief. And jumping to the opinion that this was a product of politics and homophobia is a low blow and an easy out. Do you believe everything you read on a blog? I could start a blog this afternoon and report the sky is falling. And if anything was reduced, the practice of exploration by scientific method was the victim of this piece. By beating up on the curiosity that drives such answers to be sought, the writer claims that anyone who doesn't lump politics, sexuality and art together is an unfeeling hypocrite. The article didn't say it was wrong to be bisexual, it was just saying that perhaps the label is wrong. If we don't ask questions and test the results, would be just go around making decisions based on how it makes us feel? I'm not sure about that.
--LB
07/13

This article is categorically stupid. Look, first of all, I don't know whether it's true that the study was run by neo-Nazis who want to put all gay people in concentration camps (although I doubt it). But either way, accurate or not, why is the result of the study inherently offensive? Let's say, for the sake of argument, that it IS true that most men who identify as bisexual actually get more turned on by men or by women and not both equally. What does that mean? Does it mean it's bad to be bisexual? Does it mean it's impossible that these people actually like fucking men and women alike? No, it just means that on a biological level, they're more attracted to one sex than the other. And isn't transcending the biological level part of what makes us human? My reaction to the study was something like, "Huh, that's interesting if it's true"; getting all upset or all excited about it doesn't make any sense. I'm straight; prove to me that my body craves gay sex, and that won't mean I won't still feel like fucking my girlfriend. People who reject studies because the results don't jibe with their political preferences are ridiculous, and that goes for lefties and Bush Republicans alike.
--HG
07/13

"Raw" Nerve, indeed.
--BD
07/13

send feedback on "Raw Nerve: Categorically Stupid"

back to "Raw Nerve: Categorically Stupid"