The large segment that is bisexual

[macaroni21]

In a different thread (This time bit different), we touched on how the Saphan Khwai massage shops tag their advertised boys as "Top", "Straight" or "T&B". @vinapu has previously commented on what "straight" means when these boys have no difficulty performing in the room.

I came across this YouGov survey from 2019 that asked respondents in the UK aged 18 and older to place themselves on the Kinsey scale. Here's a bar chart showing the results, and comparing it to 2015. The percentage at the "6" end of the scale remains quite constant at 4%.  This is the percentage who say they are "completely homosexual".  The percentages at the adjacent "4" and "5" categories on the scale also seem quite constant. However, there has been noticeable migration from "0" (completely heterosexual) to the slightly or somewhat bisexual categories "1" and "2". In 2019 compared to 2015. In the more recent results, those reporting some degree or more of bisexuality (i.e. from "1" through to "5") totalled 24 - 25% of respondents.

The write up at https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/23882-one-five-young-people-identify-gay-lesbian-or-bise also points out that among younger adults aged 18-24, a third (32%) of them place themselves in "1" and "2" categories. I can't find the detailed data for youngs adults in the other categories; I'd love to see what their percentages of "5" and "6" are, nor can I find any graph reflecting just the 18 - 24 year-olds.

If the latest data (especially the sub-data from young britons) corresponds to the biological spectrum (as opposed to earlier data heavily skewed for cultural reaons), then indeed there is a biggish pool of bisexual men who are quite capable of working in our kind of bars and massage parlours. Vinapu does not need to wonder much longer.

Even if we exclude those bisexuals who rated themselves as more heterosexual than homosexual, there is still 7% in the categories "3", "4" and "5" as can be seen from the embedded bar chart. "3" represents equally attracted to either sex, "4" and "5" means more attracted to the same sex than the opposite sex. The aggregate 7% in these "equally or more attracted to same-sex than opposite sex" outnumber the "completely homosexual" by nearly two to one.

One caveat is that these surveys lump men and women together. It is now recognised that one sex is not a mirror image of the other. That bisexuality is common (maybe even a majority) among women is no longer a contentious argument. On the other hand, men seem to demonstrate more polarity. Therefore, the YouGov percentages may overstate the percentages of gay men simply because of the inclusion of women in their survey. 

Does anyone know of any recent study giving percentages for men only, across the Kinsey scale?

--

Might new self-reportied survey data be skewed too because "queerness" might be seen as fashionable? When men report themselves to be bisexual, how real is that?

A study (beware, heavy science: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7414168/) shows that self reports correlate pretty well to physical arousal when subjects are studied using penile circumference meters. Bisexual men's dicks responded to visual stimuli just as they said they would. In other words, we can trust their self-reporting. That biggish portion of people who say they are biseuxal to some degree or more, really are bisexual.

 

 

[bkkmfj2648]

When I moved from the USA to Italy in 1999 - I was very surprised by the number of men who identified as "bi-sex" rather than "gay" - because back then it was more acceptable to be "bi-sex" then gay - a lot to do with the fact that Italy hosts the Vatican and the conservative nature of many Italian rural families.

I wonder if now in 2024, more Italians would now finally feel safe to identify as gay instead of bi-sex.

Another Italian friend of mine told me that being bi-sex has always been in the Italian culture from the Roman Gladiator timeframe, where it was quite normal for men to have both a wife - for procreation purposes and one or more boy-toys to play with and to have sex with - as this was often standard practice.

So, perhaps this is why many Italian men identified as bi-sex ?

[macaroni21]

er... just to make sure I was not misunderstood... I was trying to make two points:

Firstly, even when the massage parlours advertise their boys as "straight", they are almost surely bisexual to a degree; and there is quite a large pool, going by new data, of bisexual boys to recruit from.

Secondly, bisexual really means bisexual. It used to be argued that when people identified as bisexual, they were really gay , but were avoiding the "gay" label. The heavy-duty scientific article makes the case that those who identify as bisexual really do show penile arousal to stimuli from both sexes

[Keithambrose]

13 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

When I moved from the USA to Italy in 1999 - I was very surprised by the number of men who identified as "bi-sex" rather than "gay" - because back then it was more acceptable to be "bi-sex" then gay - a lot to do with the fact that Italy hosts the Vatican and the conservative nature of many Italian rural families.

I wonder if now in 2024, more Italians would now finally feel safe to identify as gay instead of bi-sex.

Another Italian friend of mine told me that being bi-sex has always been in the Italian culture from the Roman Gladiator timeframe, where it was quite normal for men to have both a wife - for procreation purposes and one or more boy-toys to play with and to have sex with - as this was often standard practice.

So, perhaps this is why many Italian men identified as bi-sex ?

Indeed, it was considered  that a wife was for children, and a boy for sex, cf Ancient Greeks. If you had servants it was accepted that the master was entitled  to have sex with them! Some of the emperors, Tiberius, for example, was reputed to have taken this to extremes!

[fedssocr]

I believe this. My guess is that it has ever been thus, but social stigma kept most in the closet.

I have a young friend (21) who identifies as bisexual. I think he leans more gay out of some necessity, but I believe him that he is pretty much equally attracted to women and men. He has never had much luck with women but guys love him (including me). He's got lots of issues.

[xpaulo]

13 hours ago, macaroni21 said:

they are almost surely bisexual to a degree;

While not an expert on gay British novelist/writer Quentin Crisp, he wrote that during the Second World War it wasn't difficult to find American soldiers willing to fuck him in alleys outside pubs in London when he dressed in drag. I've always thought a lot of straight men will fuck anything in the right circumstances... as I heard an elderly lady characterize men on a call-in show once, "if they can't eat it, they screw it." The look on the show host's face was delicious.

[unicorn]

I agree that the percentage of people who are bi probably hasn't changed much. I suspect that there may be two phenomena at work. One is that in the past, most bi people simply avoided the stigma by living a straight life and describing themselves as straight. Now that there's less stigma, more bi people are open about their sexual orientation. Another phenomenon is that some people who are gay or lesbian use the "bi" label as a transition (for example Sir Elton John and George Michael). All I know is that I have zero sexual attraction to women. I also have very little interest in having sex with men who describe themselves as straight. They're either liars, lousy lays, or both. 

[vinapu]

4 minutes ago, unicorn said:

men who describe themselves as straight. They're either liars, lousy lays, or both. 

I wish I could say the same but no, can't agree with the above

[reader]

Thankfully, sexuality is fluid. That fluidity makes it possible for otherwise straight men to dominate the bars and massage shops readers here patronize.

Without them, many--if not most--venues would be unable to keep the doors open.

[Keithambrose]

1 hour ago, reader said:

Thankfully, sexuality is fluid. That fluidity makes it possible for otherwise straight men to dominate the bars and massage shops readers here patronize.

Without them, many--if not most--venues would be unable to keep the doors open.

I think it was Jean Genet who pointed out that if deprived of women, say in prison, almost all men would have sex with other men. Same used to apply in boarding school of which I have personal knowledge! Sex was rife among teenage boys, most of whom went on to live a 'straight' life. It can be said that teenagers are experimenting with their sexuality, but a lot of experiments went on!

[unicorn]

2 hours ago, reader said:

Thankfully, sexuality is fluid...

Maybe it is for some people. I've personally never met such a person. 

[macaroni21]

I would be careful not to delegitimise bisexuality as a real orientation with comments like "all sexuality is fluid" (which I too consider too easy a dismissal of the empirical). 

The observation that in prisons, lots of straight-identifying men have sex with other inmates also needs analysis. I don't have the data, but I think there can be 2 hypotheses that can be tested. 

1: only a segment of straight-identifying men have sex with other inmates. If this segment is about 25% then it raises the possibility that these are perhaps the innately bisexual men.

2: if far more than 25%, then we're talking about Kinsey 0 types engaging in sex with other men, in which case we may begin to see the activity as one where they are using each other as sex toys for masturbatory purposes.

Interestingly, I don't hear of rampant women-on-women sex in female prisons. Have others heard this?

[reader]

I wasn't delegitimizing bisexuality. I was dispensing with the ridiculous notion that straight men who have sex with men are "either liars, lousy lays, or both."

[reader]

1 hour ago, macaroni21 said:

Interestingly, I don't hear of rampant women-on-women sex in female prisons. Have others heard this?

I'd be surprised if any of us were in a position to know.

[floridarob]

10 hours ago, reader said:

Thankfully, sexuality is fluid

True, I used to be a top 😝

[xpaulo]

19 hours ago, Keithambrose said:

a lot of experiments

The only close to a Penthouse Forum experience I ever had was when I was staying in an apartment on a six week out of town work assignment. There was a tall lanky carpenter living across the hall and every morning I'd see him walking to work, work belt around his hips and I'd sigh with lust. One evening he saw me in the hallway and invited me in for a whiskey. We drank a lot of whiskey, to the point that I went and sat cross legged on the floor right below where he was sitting on the couch. Incredibly after a few minutes he reached a foot out to my lap.... I began stroking it and he suggested we get naked. As soon as that happened I leaned over and took his cock in my mouth... sadly he pulled away but leaned his head over to me so I rose up and put my tongue in his mouth. He pushed me away laughing.... and said he wanted to fuck me bareback and then I should fuck him. This was when HIV and AIDs were a lot more serious and I wasn't keen on the bareback... I was just trying to convince him on oral when his drunk girlfriend started pounding on the door and yelling to let her in. He told me to grab my stuff and go to the bathroom. He let her in and when they went into the living room I escaped to my apartment. The  next morning I found my shirt hanging on my door. And when I saw him later that day I said, are we cool, and he said yes. But we never spoke again. I think the alcohol was enough to loosen his inhibitions, but I'd say he was mostly straight. He was so hot though, I hated his girlfriend.

[TMax]

It took me a long time to realize I was bi but now I am comfortable being bi (although the closet door is firmly bolted) and I do love the variety of sex, to me that is pretty much what it's all about. Going with the guys gives me a different thrill than going with ladies but I get great satisfaction from both. I was a member of a ladyboy forum and god help anyone that suggested the other members were bi, those guys would go nuts on anyone that suggested they were actually bi despite admitting they like to suck ladyboy dicks and even to having the ladyboys top them.

[xpaulo]

20 hours ago, macaroni21 said:

Have others heard this?

An acquaintance here in Canada who did prison time Arizona, drugs, told us it was all the pussy she could eat.

[unicorn]

On 9/17/2024 at 12:47 AM, reader said:

I wasn't delegitimizing bisexuality...

Well, you kind of are, and this seems to be another example of your pattern of xenophobic, transphobic, and generally LGBTQI-phobic posts. While there are people who self-identify as straight, gay, or bi, research has shown that patterns of attraction are usually quite permanent, with rare exceptions. The myth of fluidity has resulted in significant damage from so-called "conversion therapy" frauds. 

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00918369.2020.1840213

"... Findings support previous studies which report a strong correlation between conversion therapy and poor mental health outcomes...". 

In fact, many countries and states have now banned conversion therapy outright (blue), or have pending legislation for a ban:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_conversion_therapy

(Blue countries and states have banned conversion therapy, and legislation is pending in the yellow states)

When looking at patterns of persistence in self-identification (which is different from actual sexual orientation) in the LGBTQI community, there are generally three patterns: those who consistently identify as gay or lesbian, those who consistently identify as bi, and those who first identify as bi, and later as gay or lesbian (such as Elton John and George Michael).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3215279/

"...At the individual level, we found three patterns of sexual identity over time: consistently gay/lesbian, transiting from bisexual to gay/lesbian, and consistently bisexual. Of the youths, 72% consistently identified as gay/lesbian or bisexual over time. This finding of consistency is similar to past research (Diamond, 2000: 70%), despite differences between the two samples on gender, ethnicity, recruitment site, and length of follow-up...". 

In my over 6 decades of life, and in my husband's over 3 decades of life, neither of us has ever met someone who's sexual orientation has actually changed during his life. We do know two couples who used to be Mormon, and face the prospect of ostracism from their Mormon communities if they ever came out as gay, make the difficult choice to identify as gay. However, they were always gay to begin with. Even leaders of the "conversion therapy" movement have often been unceremoniously outed as gay, even when they identified as straight, including this man:

https://www.postandcourier.com/news/conversion-therapy-leader-for-2-decades-mckrae-game-disavows-movement-he-helped-fuel/article_fb56dcfc-c384-11e9-970d-bb9a2a8656c5.html

"McKrae Game is gay. He was gay when he received counseling from a therapist who assured him he could overcome his same-sex attractions. He was gay when he married a woman and founded what would become one of the nation’s most expansive conversion therapy ministries. He was gay when thousands of people just like him sought his organization’s counsel, all with the goal of erasing the part of themselves Game and his associates preached would send them to hell. For two decades, he led Hope for Wholeness, a faith-based conversion therapy program in South Carolina’s Upstate. Conversion therapy is a discredited practice intended to suppress or eradicate a person's LGBTQ identity through counseling or ministry...

“As former ex-gay leaders, having witnessed the incredible harm done to those who attempted to change their sexual orientation or gender identity, we join together in calling for a ban on conversion therapy,” they wrote in the letter. “It is our firm belief that it is much more productive to support, counsel, and mentor LGBTQ individuals to embrace who they are in order to live happy, well-adjusted lives.” “Conversion therapy is not just a lie, but it’s very harmful,” Game told The Post and Courier. “Because it’s false advertising.” Nearly 700,000 LGBTQ-identifying adults have undergone conversion therapy treatments or counseling, according to a 2018 study by UCLA’s Williams Institute. The various forms of conversion have been tied to emotional and psychological trauma for many, including depression, anxiety and thoughts of suicide. It’s been condemned by virtually every major medical group in the United States, including the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association...". 

I've twice hired men who identified as straight, and have vowed to not make that mistake again. A sexual orientation cannot be faked or changed, any more than I could pretend to enjoy having sex with a woman. 

[reader]

23 minutes ago, unicorn said:

I've twice hired men who identified as straight, and have vowed to not make that mistake again.

You made a mistake?

How the hell do you think those two poor guys feel. 😄

[unicorn]

1 hour ago, reader said:

You made a mistake?

How the hell do you think those two poor guys feel. 😄

It's not too complicated for most people to understand. I paid them for the encounter. I don't think either expected anything else. 

[reader]

If they weren't straight before that, they certainly are now.
😃

[Keithambrose]

Again, this goes back to what is meant by 'Straight'. There are countless  comments  on here of members having a great time with guys who are married, etc, and who advertise  as Straight on the massage ads. If they say that they are Straight, but are happy to have sex  with guys, top or bottom,  then I see no issue. Whether they are Straight or bi is another point. As i said before, one view is that any guy, however Straight, whatever that means,  can in some circumstances  have gay sex, and enjoy it. 

[vinapu]

1 hour ago, Keithambrose said:

 As i said before, one view is that any guy, however Straight, whatever that means,  can in some circumstances  have gay sex, and enjoy it. 

quite a few of the best guys of my recent, say post-covid trips  turned out to me married , engaged , fathered children etc and still did excellent job perusing my stamp collection and not being inhibited in any way. Whether they liked it or just  successfully tried to do best job they were hired for,  is , from my point of view , irrelevant.

One,  when I told him they look cute with his girl become visibly more clingy

[unicorn]

Once again, how a person identifies himself and his actual sexual orientation can be different. There are plenty of gay men who've identified as straight, and even married and/or had children. That doesn't make them straight or even bi. Some of us knew Epigonos from another board. He sadly passed away about 2 years ago. He grew up as a schoolteacher in the 60s and had to put up a straight front. He married and had kids, but never enjoyed sex with his wife, and came out with a vengeance in the '00s. Almost everyone knows about Anthony Perkins, who also married and had children. I never personally spoke with him, but those who did say that his wife was a "beard," and that the relationships he enjoyed was with men. Director Vicente Minnelli led an openly gay life in NYC before he moved to Hollywood, and then married and had children, including Liza Minnelli, who, interestingly enough, herself married a man who later came out as gay: Aussie songwriter and singer Peter Allen. Little Richard was another who married to keep up appearances, although he told Penthouse magazine in 1995 that he knew damn well he'd "been gay all his life." 

https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/gq-men-of-the-year-2010-little-richard-legend

"...In recent years, he has developed a more liberal view of homosexuality. "I've been gay all my life and I know God is a God of love, not of hate," he told Penthouse in 1995...". 

I'm 100% gay, and therefore could no more enjoy sex with a woman than I could with an encyclopedia. Certainly, some male escorts advertise as straight, because there's obviously a segment of the gay hiring populace which gets off on the fantasy of seducing a straight man (or whatever other reasons they have). However, if the man truly enjoys the sex, he is not straight. Period. If a man who says he's straight then states you gave him great sex, either he's a great actor, or you  can't tell when someone's acting, or he was never straight to begin with. I have zero delusions on being able to show a straight man a great time in the sack. Other people seem to get off on these delusions, however.