By Bill Burleson
Part 1 - http://main.bisexual.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3799
Two years ago, I was in Indianapolis for a book reading at a local LGBT bookstore. After the event, members of the local bisexual organization, Indy Bi-Versity, took me out to dinner and to a nice little gay bar. At the bar, there were about ten of us sitting around a large table. It was early and still quiet. A man who obviously had been drinking a little bit recognized someone at our table and joined us. After a few minutes of conversation, he said to no one specifically, “You’re bi? You’re all bi?” “Yes,” we said. He relied, “I don’t believe in bisexuality. You’re all just gay and lesbians who haven’t come out yet. Go ahead, prove me wrong.” It is interesting to take in the absurdity of the circumstances: This guy apparently feels comfortable telling ten people he doesn’t even know that they are wrong in how they feel and that he knows different, and then demand proof of the validity of their sexual orientation.
This is not unlike the situation the bisexual community finds itself in since the release of the Michael Bailey, Gerulf Rieger and Meredith L. Chivers Northwestern University study, “Sexual Arousal Patterns of Bisexual Men,” (2005 American Psychological Society). In it Bailey claims, “Indeed, with respect to sexual arousal and attraction, it remains to be shown that male bisexuality exists.” As easy at it is to dismantle Bailey’s claim (See Part 1), the fact that the claim was made means the bisexual community has had to deal with it ever since.
The first and most damaging thing the community had to deal with was the story by Benedict Carey in the July 5, 2005 New York Times, “Gay, Straight, or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited.” According to Carey, “…a new study casts doubt on whether true bisexuality exists, at least in men.” And the study “lends support to those who have long been skeptical that bisexuality is a distinct and stable sexual orientation.
“Nobody heard of the study until the Times article came out,” says Sheela Lambert, a New York City LGBT and bisexual activist. I first heard about the article the minute it hit the Time’s web site, the evening before the paper landed on doorsteps. I am not in the habit of checking their web site for the latest news (I am in the habit of sitting around on Sunday morning reading the Times and the Times Sunday Magazine, I must confess), but I am a member of several internet groups regarding bisexuality, and immediately I must have received 20 emails.
“People felt punched in the stomach,” said Lambert. “It was very painful.”
Not everyone was displeased. Dan Savage, advice columnist for many alternative dailies around the country, has long sparred with bisexuals. In a column titled “Just a piece on the side,” published July 14, just nine days after the Times article, Savage says about the study, “At the very least it jibes with, er, field observations I've made of male bisexuals. The sad fact is that male bisexuality is rare, much more so than female bisexuality. While there are a lot of guys out there having bisexual experiences…there's a difference between someone's true sexual orientation and their sexual capabilities.”
However, with all due respect to Savage’s “field observations,” support for the bi community from the greater GLBT community was both swift and clear, both concerning the study and the Times story. “Whether or not Bailey's conclusions are true, the study fails to demonstrate them effectively. Bailey has repeatedly in the past employed problematic research procedures and this study is no exception,” said Paul Varnell - not always a friend to the bi community himself - in the August 3, 2005, Chicago Free Press. Rebecca C. Brown commented in the August 4, 2005 Daily Californian, “Count me among the many who are as impressed by Dr. Bailey's findings as Jerry Falwell is by Charles Nelson Reilly's ascot collection,” “…slew of logistical failings…,” “…quack study…,” and “Bailey is operating on the idiotic and simplistic notion that porn equals real life.” In GenderPsychology.org, “What troubles me is Bailey's implicit assumption that he can answer this very personal matter for other people. Just because he essentializes sexual orientation in one way does not mean those men who see themselves as bisexual are lying.”
However, the big guns were saved for the New York Times. Matt Foreman, Executive Director for National Gay and Lesbian Task Force said in a press release, “We remain stunned that the New York Times Science section would carry such a shoddy, sensationalistic and downright insulting story.” The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) said “The claims put forward in the article, combined with the derogatory headline, are raising questions not only about the Times reporting on this study, but also about the study itself.” They were especially concerned about the headline for the article: “GLAAD contacted the Times about these concerns and asked that the online version of the headline be changed so it no longer insinuates that self-identified bisexuals are lying about their sexual orientation.” However, “The Times declined and defended the headline, saying that the phrase ‘gay, straight or lying’ is a commonly used phrase among many gay people.” Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), a media watch dog group, had something to say about that stand: “It's unclear why a derogatory stereotype about one group—bisexuals—should be more acceptable in a headline because it is attributed to another group—gay people.” They went on to say “In leaping to dramatic conclusions from a single study with a small population, Carey echoes the study's authors, who seem equally eager to generalize from scant evidence--and to confuse the study's assumptions with its conclusions.”
Much of the criticism focused on questions about Bailey’s credibility, and why the New York Times failed to report on it. Again, according to FAIR, the Times failed to give “readers any hint of Bailey's controversial history,” asserting that Bailey had argued for, should become possible to determine the future sexuality of a fetus, selecting for heterosexuality. “The fact that a researcher has promoted the eugenic elimination of homosexuality would seem to be relevant background for gauging the credibility of his studies of bisexuality.”
Bailey is probably most well known for his book, 2003 book, The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism. To me, this work makes “Sexual Arousal Patterns of Bisexual Men” look like “The Origin of Species.” The book has no footnotes, no surveys, and no statistics, and was built on anecdotal observation of a small handful of people who are transgender. According to Lynn Conway (a transgender activist who has dedicated herself to debunking the book), “…the [book] simply pronounced as a scientific fact that postoperative transsexual women are either (i) effeminate gay men who underwent ‘sex changes’ in order to have sex with lots of men, or else they are (ii) sexual paraphilic males who ‘changed sex’ for bizarre autosexual reasons.”
Attacks against Bailey have been blistering. In a review at the web site for the National Association for Research and Therapy in Homosexuality, A. Dean Byrd, Ph.D., MBA, MPH states, “J. Michael Bailey has been accused of having sex with a research subject. His own sexuality has been questioned—he is a divorced father of two who frequents gay bars for the purpose of doing ‘research.’ He has been accused of failing to obtain the informed consent of research subjects. Formal charges have been filed with Northwestern University against him over this.” Northwestern did scrutinize him and his work, but has not released the results of the investigation. However, in October 2004, Bailey resigned as Chair of the Psychology Department. It would be hard to imagine the two are unrelated.
Yet, even though the meaning of the results of the study has been sharply challenged, even though the researcher is under a cloud of suspicion, the study—and the New York Times story—lives on. As Loraine Hutchins says in her essay, “Sexual Prejudice: The Erasure Of Bisexuals In Academia And The Media,” in American Sexuality Magazine, “The story made its way into other news media outlets and was reprinted and commented on around the world.” And I know that, too often, even a well designed and credible study can end up distorted in the media, and the distortion is repeated over and over again until it has a life of its own. Even the best studies are often reduced to a headline or a sound bite, sometimes completely inaccurate. In fact, in the Times there is some thoughtful analysis—starting in the tenth paragraph—yet all that will be remembered is “Gay, Straight, or Lying.” We may examine the meaning of Bailey’s work, we may talk all we want about methodology, and we may talk about the researcher’s credibility, but what many will remember is that it’s “proven” that there are no true bisexuals, just like the drunk man in the bar that night in Indianapolis argued.
I feel sorry for those poor people who look to this for advice,” Lambert says. If a bisexual man is starting to explore his feelings, “It could take him years to sort it all out.” Bottom line, according to Lambert, “They can say there are no bisexual men until they are blue in the face. It doesn’t make it true.”
***
William Burleson is the author of Bi America: Myths, Truths and Struggles of an Invisible Community, from Haworth Press. In addition to being a columnist for Lavender Magazine in Minneapolis and a regular contributor to the Lambda Literary Report, Burleson essays about bisexuality have appeared in many publications. Burleson is currently the producer of a weekly Minneapolis cable access television show, BiCities!, has helped coordinate BECAUSE: the Midwest Conference on Bisexuality and the Eight International Conference on Bisexuality. He is a frequent speaker at college campuses, bookstores, and conferences. You can contact him at http://www.bi101.org.
(c) Copryight 2007 Bill Burleson
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