Hard science

Do bisexuals exist? Aided by soft porn and beer, the Bay Guardian conducts a rigorous study.

Experiment executed by Deborah Giattina

REMEMBER MEDIEVAL TIMES , when scientists thought that mice magically sprang forth from dirty clothes, bumblebees from carrion, and so on?

More recent history provides other excellent examples of this brand of science. Think of L. Ron Hubbard's enneagrams and '70s swingers fixating on their biorhythms. Think of Wilhelm Reich's theory of orgone energy, which has something to do with orgasms and controlling the weather. Only an orgonomist can scientifically detect its presence. How convenient.

Does that mean that only someone like me can detect the distinctly bisexual aura that emanates from the young woman who rings up my coffee every morning?

In any case, what was someone like psychologist J. Michael Bailey, PhD – notorious for claiming that M-to-F transsexuals are actually just horny gay men ... or self-obsessed gay men – doing strapping blood-pressure cuffs to young men's genitals, forcing them to watch pornos, and judging their claims to fence-sitting by the results? For those of you who've let your subscription to Psychological Science slide, he did so in a study of 101 men – a third of whom identified as bisexual, another third as hetero, and the remainder as homo – and the results, published earlier this year, basically implied that bi men might not actually exist.

Tell me, bi guys: If someone wrapped a plethysmograph around your ding-a-ling, sat you down in a doctor's office, and cued up some crappy video porn – only girls doing girls and boys doing boys, mind you – featuring permed bleach blonds, implants, and fake tans, would you necessarily pop a woody?

I mean, what kind of bi-dar is that? Clearly a second study was in order.

The first thing I needed (besides funding) was some willing, self-professed bisexuals. I posted to my favorite listservs, teeming with folks claiming to swing both ways. Then I hit up the entire office. After all, we're a progressive paper – the full range of sexual orientations should be represented here. My e-mail list of former interns? Check.

My planned methodology? To gather as many of these so-called bisexuals as possible, park them in front of a television, beer (or nonalcoholic beverage) in hand, and flash my idea of sexy videos at them all night, to see who got turned on to what. Unimpressed with the plethysmograph, I devised a simpler method of ascertaining the truth: Participants merely had to take a swig whenever they found themselves getting "in the mood."

Initial responses were kinda paltry. I feared I might be forced, once again, to experiment on my roommates (who might be less than eager, given that on our last pseudojournalistic outing, one of their friends got robbed). Plus, what if I failed to net even one elusive bisexual male, thus inadvertently strengthening Bailey's theory that, like lake monsters and the Yeti, they don't really exist. Or proving I'm totally passé because everyone is going by "pansexual" these days, darling, as some theater-community folks I know recently told me.

In the end, after more posting and a bit of haranguing, I scored a total of four men and seven women – not a bad control group, really, considering I really didn't know what the ef I was doing.

The 'Hi, Bob' study

"I can't believe you didn't get The Hunger," my disappointed assistant (and editor) squealed as I rushed into her apartment, where we'd be administering the study, a stack of videos from Lost Weekend practically bursting the seams of my backpack. I thought, I've got 11 bisexuals showing up here in 30 minutes, and she's telling me I have to show scenes from The Hunger? Apparently, the study would be unscientific without them. I sent her off to another video store while her housemate, study participant Coco*, fitted me with a "Dr. D" name tag to wear over my lab coat and crafted a sign for the door stating "bisexuals" in fancy lettering alongside an arrow pointing upstairs. I cracked open the first of many beers.

One by one, my subjects arrived. The first, whom we'll call Skippy, showed up promptly at 8 p.m., arriving courtesy of a listserv for Bay Area bisexuals. Immediately I pictured every box in his Klein grid filled with a dead-center number four, indicating "both sexes equally" in seven different categories covering emotional preferences, lifestyle choices, actual behavior, and fantasies, among other things.

Once we were pretty much assembled, I began loading the home entertainment system with DVDs and tapes. Much to our dismay, the L Word DVD was toast, so I couldn't show my bisexual compatriots the bad hetero sex had by neurotic Jenny and her poor schmuck boyfriend (mostly for the ick factor). I quickly changed course and popped in Betty Blue, which begins with, to date, my favorite hetero fuck scene. No mood music, no soft lighting, no fancy angles. Just a man, a woman, and a bed. Skippy announced he was a sucker for the fake orgasm sounds, but Ben Dover, one of my perverted friend's friends, was turned off by the vanilla missionary position.

Barely anyone was lifting a bottle. I quickly switched it out for The Hunger.

"It's hard for me to feel attracted to anything from the '80s," said Squeaky, an avowed free spirit. Jesus, this is a picky crowd, I thought. That's fucking David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve seducing some hot redhead (Ann Magnuson) they picked up at a club. What more do these people want? "I'm hungry like the wolf," the mini-skirted Cherry chimed in. Deneuve smoked, Bowie spread the moaning redhead's thighs, and then the room abruptly grew quiet, save for the sound of lip s sucking on bottle openings. And then the monkeys began shrieking, Bowie and Deneuve slayed the redhead, and everyone got a little freaked out. I took it as a positive sign that this bi crowd wasn't turned on by slashed tits.

Next, boy-on-boy action. To start things off, I chose Edge of Seventeen, the sweetest coming-out flick ever. All the girls in the room cooed over the nervous fumbling to shed clothes as underage Eric gets laid by a dude for the first time. The guys like the boner Eric's friend is packing. But when the moment of truth comes, Hey Asshole, a self-proclaimed down-low fag, yells out, "For the love of god, take your socks off!" It's a fine line between arousal and aesthetic offense.

The orgy of colorful, larger-than-life strap-ons that begins Derek Jarman's Sebastiane didn't get anyone hot and bothered (or at least drinking), though a few seemed to be considering it as a theme for their next play party. Someone uttered the words "carnival penis." Things seemed pretty hopeless – until we reached a scene in which our martyr, studly and bronzed, bathes in a shower of water that endlessly pours from a metal pitcher over his chiseled chest. Phil McCracken, who later described himself as submissive with women and dominant with men, seemed genuinely enamored, saying he wanted to show the scene over and over at his next to-do.

We moved on to lesbian lovemaking, as seen in the films Vampyros Lesbos, Bound, and D.E.B.S., and I quickly began to feel like I was conducting a film criticism class. After a few minutes of the first, a lesbian vampire psychothriller, a latecomer, Grandpa, voiced her disapproval of the obligatory voyeuristic male gaze placed upon the copulating women. Hey Asshole opined, "In the world of porn, lesbian porn is like a bad hand job," which might explain why so many men in Bailey's study flatlined during lesbian porn screenings and got labeled gay.

Though Bound and D.E.B.S. garnered their share of sips and approving quips, I noticed Phil McCracken's enthusiasm starting to wane. Luckily, I had Kansas City Truckers to draw him back into the fold. Lots of down-low sex with guys in cut-off shorts equals turn-on for McCracken: "I like fucking. That's it. No talking."

Suddenly I was painfully self-conscious about my selections. Sure, I had every possible combo of men and women, transgendered or otherwise, but a few more legitimate pornos might have helped.

Straying subjects

The time had come to take stock. Had everyone imbibed in equal-opportunity fashion? Were any of my subjects actually not bi?

In a sense, yes. Turns out Phil never liked the term, as a person attracted to more than two genders. His preference: queer, or omnisexual. Coco is an EOL (equal-opportunity lover). Squeaky broke it down by explaining that she's turned off by guys who get turned on by the idea of her being bi. Grandpa voiced her fear that no satisfying term existed.

Or rather, it didn't until Fern Aspen and I proffered our own identifier, "stray," meaning straight or gay, depending on whom you're talking to. What better way to avoid the presumption that you're indecisive, confused, and impossible to please than to tell the opposite sex you're straight and the same sex you're gay? Fern narrowed her orientation further, claiming to be a "selexual," meaning she's just really, really picky.

"Oh, so you're bi, but you're a misanthrope," said Skippy, my punctual participant from the bi list, who only dates other bisexuals. "If we're having a problem with bisexual visibility, I don't think we should be messing with the language."

He had a point. And, before leaving, he had someone's phone number too.

Deborah Giattina, the Bay Guardian's trusty editorial coordinator, likes kitty porn and often strays from the truth.