Gratuitous Speculation on the "Nature" of...

[eumelia]

I read two interesting articles this week discussing bisexuality in men and women.
This is obviously of great interest to me.

In How male bisexuality got cool the discussion is more about the legitimacy of male on male affection and less about sexuality per say... Because the idea here is how it looks and not the way people identify - behaviour is not identity.

It’s an emerging version of male bisexuality that’s more pose than sincere. The celebrities who engage in it take pains to make it clear they’re straight—half-ironically goofing around, often as a blatant grab for attention.
[...]
Gay men have long fetishized straight guys, but what’s happening now goes beyond that. It’s not just about being seduced into a same-sex encounter, but about men claiming bisexuality or bicuriosity on their own terms.

What I emphasised is really, really shitty.
Excuse me, what?
Personally, I think society has hard wired men queer or not to Objectify their, ha, objects of desire, that is however not my point. You can't really "tell" if a man is gay or straight unless he signifies it in an explicit way - lots of gay men "pass" as straight and lots of straight men are sometimes "confused" as gay. To say that, historically, Gay men have fetishized straight men is very homophobic because it's just another way of saying - gay=feminine and they only desire straight=masculine... basically a retelling on Inversion. Not to mention, that gay men who were isolated from queer community didn't actually have anyone else to desire, lets not forget that little tid bit.

[...]Somewhat surprisingly, women, too, are increasingly open to dating—and are sometimes specifically attracted to — bisexual guys

'Cause god knows that straight men are all hearts and flowers when it comes to sex and sexuality. Men who are not mono-sexual or have experienced sex that isn't just intercourse will very likely be open to a relationship that isn't utterly phallo-centric.
Shocking.
I know.

with all that, the article is incredibly dismissive of actual same-sex encounters and bisexual identity continuing the idea that bisexual people are indecisive, slutty and incapable of settling down.

It may be "cool" to toe the line and gush about the your best mate's suit etc. But I've yet to see bisexuality presented as anything other than part of the American celebrity freak show.

Go watch Torchwood, it's British.

---

In Why women are leaving men for other women (full length here) the discussion is an attempt to explain the phenomenon of women's changing orientation... despite the bisexuality in the title, I felt that the article was both misogynist and biphobic.

Women as a rule have a wider range of acceptable behaviour towards other women than men have, such is the nature of an oppressed group.
However, when society tries to push women "switching teams" as both surprising and natural, in the same place, something sounds fishy to me.

Certainly nothing is new about women having sex with women, but we've arrived at a moment in the popular culture when it all suddenly seems almost fashionable -- or at least, acceptable.
[...]
[E]xperts like Binnie Klein, a Connecticut-based psychotherapist and lecturer in Yale's department of psychiatry, agree that alternative relationships are on the rise.

"It's clear that a change in sexual orientation is imaginable to more people than ever before, and there's more opportunity -- and acceptance -- to cross over the line," says Klein, noting that a half-dozen of her married female patients in the past few years have fallen in love with women. "Most are afraid that if they don't go for it, they'll end up with regrets."

Adrienne Rich in her canonical text Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence writes about the institutions of heterosexuality (romance, marriage, etc) and how it subjugates women economically, sexually and all the other ways women have historically suffered under the burden of heterosexual desire.
More and more women today do not have to suffer under that burden and the camaraderie of other women is very appealing.

In a 2004 landmark study at Northwestern University, the results were eye-opening. During the experiment, the female subjects became sexually aroused when they viewed heterosexual as well as lesbian erotic films. This was true for both gay and straight women.

Among the male subjects, however, the straight men were turned on only by erotic films with women, the gay ones by those with men.

"We found that women's sexual desire is less rigidly directed toward a particular sex, as compared with men's, and it's more changeable over time," says the study's senior researcher, J. Michael Bailey, Ph.D. "These findings likely represent a fundamental difference between men's and women's brains."

Yeah... not really.
Disregarding of course that we grow up in a society in which women's bodies are hyper sexualised and objectified every where we go. Women as well as men have been surrounded by images of women as sexual and available... the effect is prominent in all genders.
This doesn't mean women are naturally "bisexual".
It means women are socialised in a society in which we are taught that women are sexual objects.

---

Male bisexuality is seen as a freak show.
Female bisexuality is seen as the natural order of things.
And of course the gender binary and dichotomy is prominent in both these articles. Gender and sex variance pretty much a myth.
Yeah.
There is work to be done.

Comments

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

Haven't read articles. The fact of the matter is that there is a huge circus around the queer issue, and although one can close their eyes to it and treat the Lgbt issue as a holy war of human rights, one is likely to lose out of sight many reasons for orientation antagonism in so doing. Yes, there is "traditional homophobia" - people who would not be friends with someone who they knew was gay -, but nowadays it clears way to things like the dislike of the proverbial gay lifestyle. Point being that to the extent that queer issues are human rights issues they're increasingly being accepted as legit in sane societies. To the extent that they are (masked) justifications of vulgarity and the sex-drugs-and-rock-'n-roll life they never will be, and that's probably a good thing, for gays including.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

It means women are socialised in a society in which we are taught that women are sexual objects.
Additionally, the same study the authors are citing shows that women show signs of arousal when shown chimpanzee sex (http://www.queensjournal.ca/story/2009-02-09/features/arousing-questions-about-female-sexuality/). Whether women's tendency to become aroused by anything sexual is the result of socialization or an evolutionary response to the risk of infection that results non-lubricated intercourse, it seems awfully clear that arousal isn't an accurate gauge for desire or sexual orientation...

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

What if socialization is an evolutionary response? :)

[nurint.livejournal.com]

To say that, historically, Gay men have fetishized straight men is very homophobic because it's just another way of saying - gay=feminine and they only desire straight=masculine


Couldn't it just mean straight=unattainable=more interesting challenge? God knows there's a fair share of queers (male, female, other) that want that toaster :)

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

You're funny.

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

Somewhat surprisingly, women, too, are increasingly open to dating—and are sometimes specifically attracted to — bisexual guys

I actually read this as a "surprisingly, women sometimes like men who are you know, not very manly", which is of course retarded of on its own merits.

I felt that the article was both misogynist and biphobic.

LOL, dude, I got that vibe just from the title. Seriously

"We found that women's sexual desire is less rigidly directed toward a particular sex, as compared with men's, and it's more changeable over time," says the study's senior researcher, J. Michael Bailey, Ph.D. "These findings likely represent a fundamental difference between men's and women's brains."
Wow. Every psychology prof I've ever had is itching to bitchslap this guy right now in my brain.

This doesn't mean women are naturally "bisexual".
It means women are socialised in a society in which we are taught that women are sexual objects.
While I do of course agree that that's true, I wouldn't say a fundamental difference between male and female sexual identity is something anyone can really rule out at this point. On the one hand, we really still know very little about the human brain and how it works, and on the the other there is circumstantial evidence that male sexuality is affected by certain biological factors that do not affect female sexuality and there are objective differences in the way male and female brains work.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

there are objective differences in the way male and female brains work.
Such as?

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

Oh god, don't quiz me on this, I leanred all this stuff like a year ago! LOL I can dig up my old summaries if you want but I don't remember the names of various brain glands off the top of my head.

The bottom line is there are differences in different parts of the brain between males and females. Hormones, to start with, size of things, the way things are connected/arranged. No one's sure what that means and what, if any, functions it affects, (well, aside from hormones that are easier to study and document and present the cheif differences between male/female brains) but it's as dishonest to rule out physiological differences that affect behavior/sexual orientation as it is to claim that whatever specific behaviors stem from these difference.

A good friend of mine who's doing her degree in Psych and Sociology both actually complained a lot last year that in Sociology they like to pretend that differences between men and women are completely due to upbringing/environmental effects when that's just factually not true and in Psychology you're introduced to those physiological differences right from the start.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

How do you tell that any difference between "male" and "female" brains aren't the biological differences that result from their different environmental stimuli?

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if you mean environmental as in biological processes in the womb or early child development or physiological changes in adolescnece or something else entirely?

There's extensive research on brains of infants, unborn fetuses, children, adults (frogs, horses, unicorns, lol) and the changes have been shown to be pretty constitent, across cultures and periods of time. There's never anything for certain in any kind of science, but there's good reason to believe that it's not due purely to environmental stimuli.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

From my rather poorly-remembered coursework on this, structural brain differences don't start showing up until about age two...Now, I do remember that prenatal hormonal levels (generally caused by genetics but also sometimes affected by things like a particular morning sickness medication) tend to correlate with some stereotypically gendered characteristics in adults. But the fact that there tend to be behavioral differences based on hormone levels and that men and women tend to have different levels (though of course there's a lot of natural variation within "each sex") doesn't mean that reductionist arguments like those in the article are legitimate. While, as you say, the impact of biology can't be ruled out at this point, neither can it be proven to be the most important factor. With the history and ongoing cases of Science being used to legitimize gender-based oppression, there's good reason to suspect any argument that seems like it could be used to support biological determinism.

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

doesn't mean that reductionist arguments like those in the article are legitimate. While, as you say, the impact of biology can't be ruled out at this point
whiiiiiiiiich is pretty much the summary of my original comment :)

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

And that bit about, "there's good reason to suspect any argument that seems like it could be used to support biological determinism"?

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

In my mind, this bit of my original comment:

I felt that the article was both misogynist and biphobic.

LOL, dude, I got that vibe just from the title. Seriously
means exactly that, but very possibly that's not super clear to people outside my brain.

In either case, to make it extra clear, I absolutely agree. (Honestly, after a year studying Psychology, I would experience intense feelings of shame if that wasn't my position - all my profs would disapprove.)

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

So I'm unclear as to what you were trying to say with your earlier comments, which I read as a generic defense of biological explanations. I'm not sure how to jibe that response to a post that points out that a reductionist biological argument ignores a plausible sociological explanation with what I'm reading as your agreement to the idea that biological explanations are problematic because they've often been used to make oppression seem "natural"....

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

the point of my comment, aside from LOLz:
It means women are socialised in a society in which we are taught that women are sexual objects.
While I do of course agree that that's true, I wouldn't say a fundamental difference between male and female sexual identity is something anyone can really rule out at this point.

This was something I didn't feel was mentioned, if not somewhat contradicted, in the original post and hence; I commented to point it out.

[mao4269.livejournal.com]

Your clarification seems to confirm that your original comments were a generic defense of biological explanations in response to a post that points out that a particular reductionist biological argument ignores a plausible sociological explanation. I'm still not sure how to jibe that with what I read as you agreeing with the idea that biological explanations are problematic because they've often been used to make oppression seem "natural".

I mean, if someone posted a pro-eugenics article and commented that the biological reductionist argument in it ignores sociological issues, I would find a response that says, "But you can't rule out biological factors!" to be de facto support for an argument that's problematic because it's regularly used to validate oppression.

[sabrina-il.livejournal.com]

I would find a response that says, "But you can't rule out biological factors!" to be de facto support for an argument that's problematic because it's regularly used to validate oppression.
...and yet, knowing this would be my responce as well, I was careful to give context and explanation for my comment to explain just what, exactly, I was supporting and what I wasn't.