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Patterns of Sexual Arousal in Homosexual, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Men

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine if self-identified bisexual, heterosexual, and homosexual men show differential genital and subjective arousal patterns to video presentations of bisexual, heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian sexual interactions. It was predicted that, relative to heterosexual and homosexual stimuli, bisexual men would show the highest levels of sexual arousal to bisexual erotic material, while this stimulus would induce relatively low levels of response in heterosexual and homosexual men. A sample of 59 men (19 homosexual, 13 bisexual, and 27 heterosexual) were presented with a series of 4-min sexual videos while their genital and subjective sexual responses were measured continuously. Bisexual men did not differ significantly in their responses to male homosexual stimuli (depicting men engaging in sex) from homosexual men, and they did not differ significantly in their responses to heterosexual (depicting two women, without same-sex contact, engaged in sex with a man) and lesbian (depicting women engaging in sex) stimuli from heterosexual men. However, bisexual men displayed significantly higher levels of both genital and subjective sexual arousal to a bisexual stimulus (depicting a man engaged in sex with both a man and a woman) than either homosexual or heterosexual men. The findings of this study indicate that bisexuality in men is associated with a unique and specific pattern of sexual arousal.

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Notes

  1. A random selection of five 1-min epochs (one from each of the erotic videos and one from the nonsexual video) from a random selection of 15 subjects were rescored by the first author, who was blind to the sexual orientation of the subjects. The correlation between the 75 original and the 75 rescored responses was r = .97, p < .001.

  2. The analyses were repeated using standardized scores (within-subjects, prior to the calculation of difference scores) and the pattern of results was identical.

  3. Correlations between the averaged erectile responses and reports of sexual arousal were r = .47, r = .44, r = .40, and r = .46 for heterosexual participants for the heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, and lesbian stimuli, respectively. For the same stimuli, the correlations were r = .18, r = −.02, r = .54, and r = .19 for homosexual participants and r = .62, r = .77, r = .59, and r = .66 for bisexual participants.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported, in part, by Grant No. 2-29417 from the Indiana State University Research Committee. Jerome Cerny is now retired from Indiana State University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN, USA

    Jerome A. Cerny

  2. The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, Indiana University, Morrison Hall 313, 1165 E. Third St., Bloomington, IN, 47405-2501, USA

    Erick Janssen

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Correspondence to Erick Janssen.

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Cerny, J.A., Janssen, E. Patterns of Sexual Arousal in Homosexual, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Men. Arch Sex Behav 40, 687–697 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-011-9746-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-011-9746-0

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