The Remote Island by Bryan Christian Today on Nerve's TV blog: Dance, Hipster, Dance! Plus: our latest NewsCrush — and why one army brat is breaking up with Army Wives.
REGULARS
posted 7/13/2005
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On July 5, The New York Times published a story heralding one of the
most dubious psychological studies in recent memory. In "Straight, Gay, or
Lying: Bisexuality Revisited," Benedict Carey reported the findings of a recent
study in which psychologists enlisted
100
self-identified
gay,
straight
and
bisexual
men
to
watch
gay,
straight and lesbian porn. During showtime, the subjects' states of arousal
were monitored
with sensors. From this, the researchers deduced that most of the bisexual
men were actually not bisexual at all but, in fact, skewed either straight
or gay. What the Times did
not report, what was later covered extensively on
AMERICAblog.com,
was that the study's lead author, Dr. J. Michael Bailey, has a history of ethics
violations, has been linked to a racist, neo-eugenics movement, and, despite
repeated claims to being gay friendly, is known for stating his belief that
most transexuals are "especially suited
to prostitution."
In lending credence to such a questionable study, America's most influential
newspaper has undermined its own credibility. How
are we to take seriously this handful of psychologists — from
such reputable institutions as Northwestern University and Toronto's Center
for
Addiction and Mental Health — whose
sole means of exploding the rigorously tested theories of Freud and Kinsey
was to measure guys' woodies as they screened skin flicks?
First of all, are men the only measuring sticks of sexual orientation? And what about touch and smell — aren't
These categories are irrelevant to my life. To most people's lives.
pheromones a factor in helping us to determine our sexuality? Where were the questions that would gauge each subject's responses to emotional or intellectual stimuli? I'm just a layperson here, but it strikes me that the researchers' approach left no room for nuance. And desire is all about nuance.
If they'd applied their criteria to me — a near-perfect
Kinsey-six lesbian — and hooked up electrodes to my naughty bits before sitting
me in front of porn, I'd really have thrown them for a loop. The girl-on-girl flicks would have elicited little more than a yawn, the straight porn would have made me raise an eyebrow, and the boy-on-boy
movie would have had me writhing on the floor. By their standards, does that make
me
bisexual?
A
gay
man?
Straight?
A bit of background: when it comes to visual stimulation, nothing makes me hotter than watching two men going at it. There is something really admirable about gay male porn, at least in principle: it's egalitarian. Everyone gets a turn at the top as well as at the bottom. Everyone comes, and often they do it together. Maybe this is why a lot of dykes love gay male porn.
But despite my love of men as an aesthetic, and as platonic company (yes, some of my best friends are. . . ), I have never been able to follow through in the desire department. I've been turned on by kissing, groping and the feeling of an erection against my body. But once pheromones mix with pheromones and foreplay gives way to sex, my body shuts off. I have to stop, leaving the poor guy with blue balls. And I'm just not a cocktease kind of girl — not in my heart, or in my mind.
I've certainly never left a woman high and dry. Their mere
scents make my hands shake, my face blush, my heart race. I have fallen in
love with women at the office, at cocktail parties, over email exchanges, in
the pages of books, and on the screen. It has taken me five minutes, a
month,
a
year.
So taking my cues from Freud and Kinsey — and their disciples — these are the criteria I use to define who I am. I believe it's quite accurate. If I'd ever fallen in love with a man, even once, I'd happily call myself "bisexual," if I
"Bisexual" conveys
a sense of frivolity and indecision.
had to call myself anything.
But what invites these idiotic studies, I think, is an issue of semantics. "Bisexual" is an essentially reductive label. We hear "sexual" first, connoting a preference, not an orientation. The word conveys a sense of frivolity and indecision, which undermines its complexity. Whereas homosexuals are more commonly referred to as "gays" and "lesbians" and heterosexuals as "straight," bisexuals are primarily called "bisexuals" — that is, when they aren't being dismissed with such derogatory terms as "fence-sitters," "switch-hitters," "AC/DC," etc.
The word "bisexual" seems to dare researchers to prove that humans are incapable of desiring both men and women. Many gays and lesbians, as well as straight people, presume bisexuals are gays who won't relinquish their heterosexual privileges, or straight people who like to dabble or swing. And perhaps there are people who fall into these categories.
But what about people who genuinely fall in love
with either sex, for their minds and their bodies? Does the label "bisexual" truly describe who
they are? Maybe serial monogamists, who have had relationships with both men
and women, opt out of self-categorization. But we're a pigeonhole-obsessed society,
so there needs to be a more evocative name, so we can avoid the humiliation of
being turned into lab rats, and watch as sexuality is reduced to experiments
where people's genitals are wired up to electrodes. What could that name be?
As a lesbian, I'm not in a position to create it. So I put it to Nerve readers
whose loves and desires defy categorization. Maybe adapting the name of a renowned
bisexual person from the history books is a good place to start: Socrates. Alexander
the Great. Catallus. Virginia Woolf. Colette. Alfred Kinsey, himself.
n°
Kera Bolonik's essays, features and book reviews have appeared in New York, The New York Times, Salon, The Nation, The Advocate and Bookforum, among other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
