1 00:00:02,930 --> 00:00:04,438 - Or thinking they're lying. So with men... I wrote a book called Bi: 2 00:00:04,522 --> 00:00:04,887 The Hidden Culture, 3 00:00:04,970 --> 00:00:08,727 History, and Science of Bisexuality, and I did that after I created a 4 00:00:08,810 --> 00:00:12,610 bisexual research group. So, I wasn't a sexuality researcher, but as a bi 5 00:00:12,710 --> 00:00:16,527 person and a scientist, I was interested in the science of bisexuality, 6 00:00:16,610 --> 00:00:20,430 and I couldn't really find it. It was really hard to figure out what 7 00:00:20,860 --> 00:00:24,730 people were actually learning about bisexual people in 8 00:00:25,270 --> 00:00:27,790 comparison to other kinds of queer people. 9 00:00:28,700 --> 00:00:32,406 And one of the things I found is that the terms that are used are not necessarily 10 00:00:32,490 --> 00:00:36,467 bi. And so it could be things like plurisexual. So, if you type into Google 11 00:00:36,550 --> 00:00:40,357 Scholar the word bisexual, you're going to get a lot of confusing things also because 12 00:00:40,440 --> 00:00:43,964 bisexual is used for, like, two sexes where you have multiple sex or you can 13 00:00:44,048 --> 00:00:46,577 change, and so they're bisexual. 14 00:00:46,660 --> 00:00:50,950 - Right. - Yeah, which is different entirely. And so I think partly 15 00:00:51,050 --> 00:00:54,407 out of that, researchers started using words like plurisexual, and 16 00:00:54,490 --> 00:00:57,865 omnisexual is another one. And so if you're looking for research on this, 17 00:00:57,949 --> 00:01:01,177 plurisexual is probably the word. But - What does omnisexual mean? 18 00:01:01,260 --> 00:01:02,907 - It's just the same. It's just another- - Okay. Got it. 19 00:01:02,990 --> 00:01:06,000 - another word where it's all. Sometimes pansexual is also 20 00:01:06,140 --> 00:01:10,937 used. And again, the idea being that it's all genders. 21 00:01:11,020 --> 00:01:18,020 - So how should we think about bisexuality? Is it fluid, like 22 00:01:18,750 --> 00:01:22,477 day to day, month to month, year to year fluid who you're attracted 23 00:01:22,560 --> 00:01:26,167 to? Or is it at the same time have the capacity to be attracted to 24 00:01:26,250 --> 00:01:30,697 anyone or attracted to everyone? What's the right way to think about it? 25 00:01:30,780 --> 00:01:34,441 - I think the right way to think about it is that I'm not attracted to most people, 26 00:01:34,525 --> 00:01:34,607 but 27 00:01:34,690 --> 00:01:38,497 I can be attracted to people regardless of gender, much like you're probably not 28 00:01:38,580 --> 00:01:42,280 probably not attracted to most people, but you are attracted to people 29 00:01:42,450 --> 00:01:44,167 of a certain gender, maybe. And so that's... 30 00:01:44,250 --> 00:01:46,027 It's the same as being heterosexual in terms 31 00:01:46,110 --> 00:01:49,977 of potentially my pool of people whom I might be interested in. It's 32 00:01:50,060 --> 00:01:52,137 just that the gender is irrelevant. 33 00:01:52,220 --> 00:01:55,807 - What's the biggest thing that people misunderstand about bisexuality? 34 00:01:55,890 --> 00:01:59,277 - The biggest thing that researchers find people misunderstand about 35 00:01:59,360 --> 00:02:03,027 bisexuality is that it's a phase and that it's this 36 00:02:03,110 --> 00:02:06,807 idea that it's transient, that it's always changing, and that it's a 37 00:02:06,890 --> 00:02:10,097 stepping stone. So, I think a lot of people still see bisexuality 38 00:02:10,180 --> 00:02:14,047 as on the way to Gay Town, sort of like you're, 39 00:02:14,130 --> 00:02:17,880 you're on your way, but you haven't quite committed and you're still stuck 40 00:02:17,970 --> 00:02:21,257 in expectations of society. You haven't quite let go yet, but really you're 41 00:02:21,340 --> 00:02:25,297 gay. And that's especially true for men. So when you look at research 42 00:02:25,380 --> 00:02:29,197 on bisexual men, which is actually how the research started. So, I 43 00:02:29,280 --> 00:02:32,607 think now when we think of bisexuality, we think of women. And it's true that 44 00:02:32,690 --> 00:02:36,087 today twice as many women identify as bisexual as 45 00:02:36,170 --> 00:02:40,007 men. But if you look at the history of this and the research on 46 00:02:40,090 --> 00:02:44,030 bisexuality over time, it was the other way around. So someone called Alfred 47 00:02:44,130 --> 00:02:48,067 Kinsey was one of the first sexuality researchers in recent 48 00:02:48,150 --> 00:02:51,987 history certainly, and he, after World War II, did this really big 49 00:02:52,070 --> 00:02:55,787 study of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, it was called. He was a 50 00:02:55,870 --> 00:02:59,567 biologist himself, so he thought of taxonomies, and he was doing research on 51 00:02:59,650 --> 00:03:03,167 gall wasps, so insects. And this idea of human 52 00:03:03,250 --> 00:03:06,547 sexuality was sort of thrown at him after the war because 53 00:03:06,630 --> 00:03:10,067 there's also this whole move to get people 54 00:03:10,150 --> 00:03:17,150 to, well, reproduce and to rebuild America. So sexuality was partly, and sex, 55 00:03:17,750 --> 00:03:21,487 specifically, was becoming more of an area of interest, both in terms of 56 00:03:21,570 --> 00:03:25,350 research and in terms of policy and funding. So Alfred Kinsey was 57 00:03:25,450 --> 00:03:29,230 asked, "Do you want to do a class on human 58 00:03:29,730 --> 00:03:33,647 sexual behavior?" And he was like, "I know nothing about this." So he spent about 59 00:03:33,730 --> 00:03:37,707 a year just listening to students' questions about what they want to know 60 00:03:37,790 --> 00:03:41,687 about sex, and he realized that 61 00:03:41,770 --> 00:03:45,507 he was looking for research to try and build up this course that he 62 00:03:45,590 --> 00:03:48,877 was probably going to teach, and he realized that he couldn't answer most 63 00:03:48,961 --> 00:03:49,287 of their 64 00:03:49,370 --> 00:03:52,747 questions because the research hadn't been done. So a lot of the questions were 65 00:03:52,830 --> 00:03:55,307 around, "What is normal?" 66 00:03:55,390 --> 00:03:59,167 You know, "If I feel this during sex, is that normal? How often do people have sex? 67 00:03:59,250 --> 00:04:02,078 Should I want these? What about these fantasies? What does it mean? 68 00:04:02,162 --> 00:04:05,274 What if I have homosexual fantasies? What if I engage in this kind of..." 69 00:04:05,358 --> 00:04:06,687 And so he was looking at all of 70 00:04:06,770 --> 00:04:10,207 these questions and collating them, and then he went out and did these 71 00:04:10,290 --> 00:04:14,107 huge studies, and he interviewed thousands of people himself, but 72 00:04:14,190 --> 00:04:17,407 also had all these research assistants who were out there interviewing people in 73 00:04:17,490 --> 00:04:21,027 America about their sexual behavior, 74 00:04:21,110 --> 00:04:25,010 which, I mean, just picture the time. This is the 1940s. 75 00:04:25,710 --> 00:04:29,487 This is quite a conservative time. I mean, certainly more than we might 76 00:04:29,570 --> 00:04:32,407 expect now. And here's this researcher asking 77 00:04:32,490 --> 00:04:36,327 incredibly personal questions about thousands and 78 00:04:36,410 --> 00:04:40,167 thousands and thousands of people, and he ended 79 00:04:40,250 --> 00:04:44,127 up finding, and this is one of the big findings in this book that 80 00:04:44,210 --> 00:04:47,167 he published called "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male," which was a 81 00:04:47,250 --> 00:04:50,750 best-seller for an entire year. He sold 82 00:04:50,890 --> 00:04:54,797 out auditoriums. They had to sometimes add the room next to 83 00:04:54,880 --> 00:04:58,187 the room he was in because there was so much desire 84 00:04:58,270 --> 00:05:05,270 to go to his lectures about sex that they had to connect radios to 85 00:05:05,990 --> 00:05:09,487 other halls to give people enough space to sit 86 00:05:09,570 --> 00:05:12,730 down. He was basically a rock star. And 87 00:05:13,650 --> 00:05:16,970 again, I think this challenges the misconception we have about 88 00:05:17,390 --> 00:05:20,627 sexuality, that we think of it as this sort of woke thing now. 89 00:05:20,710 --> 00:05:24,147 that the rainbow flag and all this stuff is sort of this modern 90 00:05:24,230 --> 00:05:27,927 invention almost. But this is the '40s. This was 91 00:05:28,010 --> 00:05:29,872 happening. People were going to these talks. 92 00:05:29,956 --> 00:05:31,947 People were having these conversations, and he 93 00:05:32,030 --> 00:05:35,900 created something called the Kinsey Scale. And so the Kinsey Scale is from 94 00:05:36,030 --> 00:05:39,807 zero to six, and he found that it was not useful 95 00:05:39,890 --> 00:05:43,247 to apply a binary to people's sexual desires and sexual 96 00:05:43,330 --> 00:05:47,007 orientation. It was more useful to put them on a continuum because most 97 00:05:47,090 --> 00:05:50,247 people were not exclusively homosexual or exclusively 98 00:05:50,330 --> 00:05:54,307 heterosexual. Most people were somewhere in between. And so zero 99 00:05:54,390 --> 00:05:58,327 was exclusively heterosexual tendencies, and six was 100 00:05:58,410 --> 00:06:01,894 exclusively homosexual, and he would place people based on all of the things they 101 00:06:01,978 --> 00:06:06,370 told him somewhere on the scale, and about half of men were 102 00:06:06,470 --> 00:06:10,690 somewhere in the middle, not exclusively either, and about a quarter of women. 103 00:06:11,530 --> 00:06:14,730 Now, think about the time. - It was a very conservative time. 104 00:06:14,970 --> 00:06:18,867 - Well, and it's post-war though, so I think that mattered as well. So 105 00:06:18,950 --> 00:06:21,170 there's something called a homosocial environment, 106 00:06:21,254 --> 00:06:22,767 which has nothing to do with being 107 00:06:22,850 --> 00:06:26,667 gay. That has to do with being in a situation where you are with people 108 00:06:26,750 --> 00:06:30,167 of the same gender as you. So a homosocial environment are things like 109 00:06:30,250 --> 00:06:33,240 prisons, where you only have men or only have women, 110 00:06:33,890 --> 00:06:37,787 war, which, at that point, they just had. And 111 00:06:37,870 --> 00:06:40,738 so you have a lot of men who are exclusively in the company of men, 112 00:06:40,821 --> 00:06:41,547 and maybe looking 113 00:06:41,630 --> 00:06:45,507 around going, "Well, now that my options are different, maybe I'm going to choose 114 00:06:45,590 --> 00:06:49,507 from this pool." Anyway, so he found that 115 00:06:49,590 --> 00:06:53,360 it was that way around, that a lot of people have these fantasies or 116 00:06:53,490 --> 00:06:56,357 actions that they've engaged in. And then there are other researchers, 117 00:06:56,441 --> 00:06:57,367 other male researchers, 118 00:06:57,450 --> 00:07:01,207 who found similar things, and then at some point in the '70s, it swapped, and 119 00:07:01,290 --> 00:07:04,787 it felt like maybe more people, more men were identifying as gay, 120 00:07:04,870 --> 00:07:08,690 and there were maybe fewer people who would have called themselves bi, and 121 00:07:08,790 --> 00:07:10,743 suddenly this became a thing more for women. 122 00:07:10,826 --> 00:07:12,707 So I think that there's some social things 123 00:07:12,790 --> 00:07:16,687 going on. There's some research things going on that actually bi men are 124 00:07:16,770 --> 00:07:18,487 have been studied for a long time as well. 125 00:07:18,570 --> 00:07:22,427 - Okay, so you said a lot of interesting things. So there is a difference between 126 00:07:22,510 --> 00:07:26,187 the truth and the socially acknowledged thing. So 127 00:07:26,270 --> 00:07:30,530 there's social elements. I don't know, this might be anecdotal, but 128 00:07:31,690 --> 00:07:32,750 I know a few women, 129 00:07:33,910 --> 00:07:37,610 friends of mine, who identify as bisexual. I don't know a single 130 00:07:38,750 --> 00:07:42,430 guy friend who identifies as bisexual. They're either gay or 131 00:07:42,530 --> 00:07:46,627 straight. So there's still a social thing going on. 132 00:07:46,710 --> 00:07:47,447 - Definitely. - Right? 133 00:07:47,530 --> 00:07:51,930 - Definitely, and I think that research consistently shows that 134 00:07:52,990 --> 00:07:57,990 bisexual men are more likely to identify as, well, as gay or straight. 135 00:07:58,090 --> 00:08:01,827 And gay, well, it depends. So if they 136 00:08:01,910 --> 00:08:05,787 have what we might refer to as a homosexual lifestyle, so 137 00:08:05,870 --> 00:08:09,327 they engage in sort of going to queer parties, 138 00:08:09,410 --> 00:08:13,347 maybe go on Grindr or other gay apps, that would be much more a 139 00:08:13,430 --> 00:08:17,447 lifestyle thing, where you've embraced and you see this as part of your identity, 140 00:08:17,530 --> 00:08:19,295 that you are part of this queer community. 141 00:08:19,378 --> 00:08:21,247 It's much easier to say you're gay than bi, 142 00:08:21,330 --> 00:08:25,147 most often, also because there's queerphobia within the queer community. 143 00:08:25,230 --> 00:08:29,220 And so you might get gay men saying to a bi man, "Oh, come on, you're... 144 00:08:29,310 --> 00:08:33,097 "I was bi once." That's a classic. "I was bi once," or 145 00:08:33,180 --> 00:08:36,321 "Come on, you're actually gay." It's the same that you get the other way around 146 00:08:36,404 --> 00:08:40,687 with bi women, is that because it's seen as performative, the 147 00:08:40,770 --> 00:08:44,637 idea being that bisexual women are doing it for attention, 148 00:08:44,720 --> 00:08:46,944 but the attention of men, specifically, that, well, 149 00:08:47,027 --> 00:08:50,578 they're all going to go back to men anyway and they're just doing it. It's a phase. 150 00:08:50,661 --> 00:08:52,547 It's this thing that they're doing actually to 151 00:08:52,630 --> 00:08:56,537 be sexy to men, not because they're actually interested in women. 152 00:08:56,620 --> 00:09:00,167 And so there's this lesbian-bi thing going on, which is often quite 153 00:09:00,250 --> 00:09:03,930 hostile. Not always, but often. And there's this gay male 154 00:09:04,290 --> 00:09:08,047 bi thing going on, which is different in nature but is also potentially hostile. 155 00:09:08,130 --> 00:09:11,580 So in both, saying you're bi can be problematic, but for men more so.